by Dillon Hudson

Created on: March 02, 2009

In 1952, scientists Briggs and King cloned the first animal - a tadpole. Forty-four years later, scientists cloned the first mammal, Dolly the sheep. Human cloning is surely less than a decade away. The issue is so controversial that some countries, such as England, have banned any research to do with cloning; while other countries, such as the USA, have banned only federal funding for such research. In addition, in 1973, the United States legalized abortion; the killing of an innocent child. Furthermore, scientists use embryonic stem cells, the omnipotent building blocks of the body in research - obtaining these cells which results in their destruction. The practice of cloning, stem cell research, and abortion demean human life and bridge the gap between Earth 2008 and Huxley's dystopia.

In the year 2007, over fifty million fetuses were aborted throughout the world (Howard). This fact says something about the attitude our world collectively shares about the value of human life. Children are executed "in a clinic' or women's health centers' (most absurd terms for killing rooms for little girls and boys)" (Stein 56). In a pro-choice essay, the author claims that "no one has the right to use another's body as a life support system without her [the mother's] consent" (Savoy 60). It is becoming apparent that certain individuals in the human race no longer think of the miracle of life as a blessing, but an accident - an inconvenience. Egocentric women see the child they carry as "an invader, a tumor, a thing to be removed" (Savoy 60), yet these same women continue to take part in an act that leads to new life. In a "hospital for the dying" in Brave New World, a nurse says "can't you behave?" (Huxley 206) to John the Savage as he laments the death of his mother, Linda, "as though death were something terrible" (Huxley 206); this outlook demonstrates a similar attitude that our world shares with Huxley's: parental bonds between a mother and a child disintegrate over 4,000 times a day in the United States alone (Howard). Since 1973 humans have collectively ripped fifty million children out of their mothers' wombs (Howard). Despite professing the Hippocratic Oath, physicians abort fetuses every day. "You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it." (Huxley 238); does this not sound like the attitude towards unwanted children and the abortions their mothers undergo? People think the ideas and

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