Passage 1
Cloning creates serious issues of identity and individuality. The cloned person may experience concerns about his or her distinctive identity, not only because the person will be in genotype (genetic makeup) and appearance identical to
another human being, but, in this case, because he or she may also be twin to the person who is the “father” or “mother” -if one can still call them that. What would be the psychic burdens of being the " child “or” parent "of your twin? The cloned individual, moreover, will be saddled with a genotype that has already lived He or she will not be fully a surprise to the world People will likely always compare a clone’s performance in life with that of the original, True, a cloned person’s nurture and circumstances in life will be different; genotype is not exactly destiny. Still, one must also expect parental and other efforts to shape this new life after the original-or at least to view the child with the original vision always firmly in mind. Why else then would they clone from the. Star basketball player , mathematician, and beauty queen-or even dear old dad-in the first place? Since the birth of Dolly, there has been a fair amount of doublespeak on this matter of genetic identity.Experts have rushed in to reassure the public that the clone would in no way be the same person, or have any confusions about his
or her identity; they are pleased to point out that the clone of film star Julia Roberts would not be Julia Roberts Fair enough But one is shortchanging the truth by emphasizing the additional importance of the environment, rearing, and social setting: genotype obviously matters plenty… . That, after all, is the only reason to clone, whether human beings or sheep. The odds that clones of basketball star Larry Bird will play basketball are. 1 submit, infinitely greater than they are for clones of jockey Willie Shoemaker.
Passage 2
Given all the brouhaha, you’d think it was crystal clear why cloning human beings is unethical. But what exactly is wrong with it? What would a clone be? Well, he or she would be a complete human being who happens to share the same genes with another person. Today, we call such people identical twins. To my knowledge no one has to argued that twins are immoral. “You should treat all clones like you would treat all monozygous [identical] twins or triplets,” concludes Dr. H.Tristam Engelhardt, a professor of medicine at Baylor and a philosopher at Rice University. “That’s it.” It would be unethical to treat a human clone as anything other than a human being Some argue that the existence of clones would undermine 'the uniqueness of each human being, “Can individuality, identity, and dignity be severed from genetic distinctiveness, and from belief in a person’s open future?” Asks political thinker George Will. Will and others have fallen under the sway of what one might call “genetic essentialism,” the belief that genes almost completely determine whoa person is. But a person who is a clone would live in a very different world from that of his or her genetic predecessor. With greatly divergent experiences, their brains would be wired differently. After all, even twins who grow up together are separate people-distinct individuals with different personalities and certainly no lack of Will’s “individuality, identity, and dignity.”?But what about cloning exceptional human beings George Will put it this way: “Suppose a clone of basketball star Michael Jordan, age 8, preferred violin to basketball Is it imaginable If so, would it be tolerable to the cloner???” Yes, it is imaginable, and the cloner would just have to put up with violin recitals. Kids are not commercial property. Overzealous parents regularly push their children into sports, music, and dance lessons, but given the stubborn nature of individuals, those parents rarely manage to make kids stick forever to something they hate. A ban on cloning would not abolish pushy parents.
Both passages base their arguments on the unstated assumption that
A) genetic distinctiveness is crucial to human survival as a species
B) public concern about human cloning will eventually diminish
C) human cloning is a genuinely possibility in the future
D) individualism is less prized today than it has been in the past
E) technological advanced have had a mostly positive impact on society