新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第三册 te-unit08-b

[by:和谐英语学习网|http://www.hxen.net|和谐英语||和谐英语学习网]
[00:00.00]喜欢hxen.net，就把hxen.net复制到QQ个人资料中！Who Will Take Advantage of Human Cloning?
[00:04.10]1  Last week's news that scientists had cloned a sheep
[00:09.79]sent academics and the public into a panic
[00:13.46]at the prospect that humans might be next.
[00:18.22]That's an understandable reaction.
[00:22.68]Cloning is a radical challenge to the most fundamental laws of biology,
[00:30.46]so it's reasonable to be concerned
[00:33.41]that it might be a preface to activities
[00:37.08]that will threaten human society and dignity.
[00:41.47]Yet much of the moral opposition seems also to grow out of an automatic,
[00:49.25]unthinking disgust.
[00:51.91]This refusal to consider the issue logically
[00:57.28]makes it hard for even trained scientists
[01:00.80]and other experts to see the matter clearly.
[01:05.38]While human cloning might not offer great benefits to humanity,
[01:12.04]no one has yet made a convincing case
[01:15.49]that it would do any real harm, either.
[01:18.98]2  Conservative spiritual leaders have claimed
[01:24.17]that cloning a human constitutes a gross attack on human dignity.
[01:30.04]That would surely be true if a cloned individual
[01:36.12]were treated as a lesser being,
[01:38.96]with fewer rights or lower status.
[01:43.07]But why suppose that the laws that protect our rights
[01:49.73]and dignity would not be applicable to cloned persons?
[01:55.24]A leading lawyer has suggested that cloning would violate
[02:01.97]the "right to a unique genetic identity".
[02:06.14]Where did he come up with such a right?
[02:11.15]It makes perfect sense to say that adultpersons
[02:16.40]have a right not to be cloned without their voluntary,informed consent.
[02:23.50]But if such consent were given,
[02:27.85]whose "right" to genetic identity would be violated?
[02:33.11]3  Many of the vivid warnings of science-fiction
[02:38.26]concerning the prospect of human cloning turn out,
[02:41.64]upon reflection, to be wildly improbable.
[02:45.35]There's the fear, for instance,
[02:49.49]that parents might clone a child
[02:51.65]for the sake of having "surplus parts" in case the original child
[02:57.34]needsan organ transplant.
[03:00.29]But parents of identical twins don't view
[03:05.26]one child as an organ farm for the other.
[03:08.93]Why should cloned children's parents be any different?
[03:14.40]4  Another disturbing thought is that cloning
[03:19.37]will lead to efforts to breed individuals
[03:22.72]withgenetic qualities perceived as desirable
[03:27.50](math geniuses, soccer players, etc.).
[03:31.75]Such ideas are offensive,
[03:34.13]not only because of an unthinking disgust,
[03:37.40]but also because of the horrors carried out by the Nazis
[03:41.87]in the name of improving their race.
[03:44.82]But there's a vast difference between the breeding
[03:50.98]programs as practiced by some groups
[03:54.43](where the urge to breed certain types of people
[03:57.67]leads to efforts to destroy other types)
[04:01.74]and the much more harmless forms already practiced in democratic societies
[04:08.29](where, say,
[04:09.62]lawyers freely choose to have sexual relations with other lawyers).
[04:16.00]Banks stocked with the frozen sperm of geniuses already exist,
[04:23.23]but they haven't created a master race because few women
[04:28.09]are queuing up to get pregnant this way.
[04:31.15]Why should we think it would be different
[04:35.29]if human cloning becomes available?
[04:39.07]5  So who will likely take advantage of cloning?
[04:44.87]Perhaps a couple whose child is dying.
[04:50.16]This might seem psychologically suspect.
[04:55.45]But a cloned child born to such suspect parents
[05:00.89]stands no greater or lesser chance of being loved, or rejected,
[05:06.76]than a child created the normal way.
[05:09.60]Infertile couples are also likely to seek out cloning.
[05:15.29]That such couples have other options
[05:20.33](artificially bringing egg and sperm together, or adopting a child)
[05:26.48]is not an argument for denying them the right to clone.