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Cloning: What is the right thing to do? Essay

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Cloning:
What is the Right thing to do?

Cloning offers many applications, especially in medicine, however, in spite of the many advantages, many people still consider the idea of human cloning, and the practice of cloning all together to be immoral. This opinion is rarely based on a careful analysis of facts, often only a spontaneous reaction. Cloning technology has potential for doing much good, research in human cloning should continue, although some applications of it may need to be restricted.
Cloning is the process of extracting the DNA out of a donor’s cell and implanting this genetic code in another cell in order to grow a being with identical genes, thus virtually duplicating …show more content…

Therapeutic cloning has many medical opportunities that will continue to be investigated for years into the future (Nash, Age of Cloning).
Research in cloning began as early as 1952 when researchers in Pennsylvania attempted to clone a frog from an embryonic cell. This practice is called embryo twinning and is commonly used in the cattle industry (Nash, Age of Cloning). Despite these early successes, advances in cloning slowed because it is much more difficult to extend the full DNA from adult cells that from cells in an embryonic stage. In the 1980’s biologists at the Allegheny university of Health Sciences came very close. The team tried to clone frogs from adult red blood cells, and healthy tadpoles developed, but halfway through the experiment the tadpoles died while trying to change into frogs (Nash, Age of Cloning). As recently as 1997 a group of British researchers succeeded in “unfolding” the whole DNA from the udder Cell of a grown sheep, and subsequently cloned the ewe. Cloning is still far from being perfected, before that one sheep was successfully cloned two hundred and seventy-seven tries failed (Nash, Age of Cloning).
Cloning is a very controversial subject, many believe it is morally wrong. Cloning does have some advantages though. Areas that will certainly profit from cloning are medicine and medical research. With cloning it might be possible to provide patients having terminal illnesses

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