Is cloning good or bad?

Humanity is plagued with many moral issues each day. When a research facility in England had successfully cloned a sheep, many more questions arose. The overall question is, "To clone or not to clone?" Many groups worldwide, doctors, politicians, religious people, have been battling with this question.

Many doctors believe cloning is an advancement to help save more people's lives. Although specific organs or rare blood types have yet to be cloned and actually made available to the general medical community. Think about it. If someone desperately needed a liver transplant because they drank too much alcohol, with the aid of cloning technology, doctors would be able to clone that person's liver cells and produce a healthy, genetically matched liver, thus saving that patient's life. Cloning could revolutionize the medical industry!

Many, especially on the medical field are on the up side of cloning. They see the medical need, but are reluctant, especially clashing with the Catholic Church and other conservatives. Since cloning is not yet ready to be made accessible, by any means, to the general public, it is not yet a major issue to politicians, as well as to many Filipinos. We will have to wait and see whether cloning is legal all out, only parts and specific uses legal, or all illegal, in the time being.

Most religious people are on the down side of cloning. Many say that cloning is messing with the natural order of things. That it's playing God (which ever one you believe in). Many say that cloning will take away the natural part of life and death. If a young child is killed in a car accident, a grief stricken mother could have him cloned. By doing this, she did not let herself rightly heal. She created a totally different human being from her lost son (in the sense that inevitably he will have a different personality.).

Many, religious or not, say that cloned humans may be looked down upon as inferior; that clones will be enslaved, or harvested for organ transplants. Both are cruel and very viable arguments. Would you want to be enslaved and have your organs taken just because you were cloned and not born naturally?

To clone or not to clone? Many say go for it. Many say it's not right; that playing God is best left to God. Cloning may or may not be a good thing. Here in the Philippines, cloning is not a big deal. But I bet a few years from now, the issue of cloning will be of interest to the general public especially when public interest will be at stake. We will just have to wait.

Jesson J. Morata
MBEAB Lapu-Lapu City

A call for prayer

I rejoiced with millions of Filipinos over the spectacular win of Manny Pacquiao, whose roots can be traced back to my hometown, over Mexican legend Erik Morales.

I am however upset over the way some of our opposition congressmen and columnists, who portrayed themselves to be upright before the public eye, infuse nasty politics on the appearance of the First Gentleman atop the ring and the subsequent call of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to congratulate a victorious Filipino.

I am humbly asking the Filipinos, particularly the Cebuanos, to pray, in the same way that we prayed for Pacquiao, for these congressmen and columnists to abandon an envious and resentful heart.

NEIL L. PAPAS
San Isidro
San Fernando, Cebu