Essay on Does Artificial Human Cloning Challenge Ethical Boundaries?

Six years ago, an event in genetic history changed our perspective on "reproduction" and added to our conscience a new element in the study of biology. On February 23, 1997, the world was introduced to Dolly, a 6-month-old lamb that was cloned from a single cell taken from the tissue of an adult donor. Ever since the birth of this sheep, a question that never before existed now lingers in the mind of many: should human cloning be a part of our society?

While we have the state of the art technologies and the result of a successful cloning of the infamous lamb known as Dolly, should we take the next step and begin human cloning? If I were to carry the super DNA that scientists are wanting to explore in the lab, would I allow myself to be duplicated? Absolutely not! Replicating a human is not only wrong on ethical grounds but also a threat to our existence! The biggest concern is how far will humans attempt to control nature? Therefore, I do not believe that cloning should be allowed based on my teleological outlook.

Cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves complex maneuvering. A cell is first taken from the body of the person or animal to be cloned. It is then inserted into an egg cell whose nucleus has been removed, thus creating the equivalent to a zygote, or fertilized egg. After certain chemical adjustments, the cells of the zygote divide and multiply, as if it had been created from an egg and sperm. The zygote becomes a blastocyst, an early-stage, five-day-old embryo consisting of about 150 stem cells. If the blastocyst is placed into a surrogate mother’s uterus, it could possibly develop into a fully grown person, a replica of the original cell’s donor.

In July 2000, Dr. Ian Wilmut, a geneticist of Scotland publicized the cloning of a lamb named Dolly. Out of 277 attempts at fussing cells, only 29 of the fused cells became embryos, on which resulted in one pregnancy, which then

While some believe cloning to be acceptable others feel equally strongly that human cloning is completely wrong. With the state of the science as it is at the moment it would involve hundreds of damaged pregnancies to achieve one single live cloned baby. What is more, all the evidence suggests that clones are unhealthy and often have a number of built-in genetic defects, which lead to premature ageing and death. It would be completely wrong to bring a child into the world knowing that it was extremely likely to be affected by problems like these. The dignity of human life and the genetic uniqueness we all have would be attacked if cloning became commonplace. People might be

Cloning by definition taken from the Oxford Dictionary is a plant or an animal that produced naturally or artificially from the cells of another plant or animal and so the same as it. The first cloned adult mammal is a sheep named Dolly. The aim of research into human cloning has never been to clone people, or to make babies. The original aim of human cloning research is to get stem cell to cure a disease. It is inevitable that one day this knowledge of human cloning would be abused. As time goes by, the scientist started to think deeply and this is how the concept of cloned human being introduced. There are a few reasons why the human cloning is illegal by the laws. Human cloning research faces with many problems since it first announced

Before the ethics of human cloning can be discussed, the mechanics of cloning must be understood first. Cloning is the process of making an exact genetic copy of an organism by a method called nuclear transplantation which is a process of removing a nucleus (the center of a cell which contains all of the biological information)

The novel Brave New World presents us with a vision of a future where human beings are no longer born the “natural” way but are rather manufactured in identical batches to certain specifications. Where concepts like “mother” and “father” are scatological and children are taught only to keep the order and complete their predetermined occupations. By the end of the novel Mr. Huxley has us thankful that such a world is beyond our grasp. However, with the successful cloning of a Scottish sheep named Dolly, images of a Brave New World became so much closer to reality. Even just the word clone can summon dark images of lines of identical individuals with bar codes tattooed on their necks walking in lock-step fashion and it is due in no small

Many ethical and moral dilemmas arise when discussing human cloning, and one can have many positions for and against each. To understand the issues surrounding human cloning, one must have a basic

On July 5, 1996, an adult sheep clone known as Dolly was created by using the somatic

Problems with ethical concerns over human cloning play a very large role in hindering the adoption of various legislation. Anti-abortion organizations have entered the debate by voicing their opinions about human cloning and research. They claim that by allowing research to take place on human embryos, Congress would be giving approval for the destruction of life(Appendix A.4). Would we, in fact, be devaluing life by creating, experimenting and killing human embryos for the purpose of research?(Appendix A.5) There has also been concern over the rights of a human clone. Issues have been raised about the "individuality, autonomy, objectification, and kinship of the resulting children" (Appendix A.6). Because the clone would be identical genetically and phenotypically to a person who currently exists or did exist in the past, he or she may be expected to follow in the footsteps of the DNA donor.

What would you say if I told you that scientists had just developed a new procedure that could lead not only to the cure for cancer, but would provide an unlimited source of organ donors and could lead to the first effective treatment of nerve damage? Now adding on to this scenario lets say that our government was taking action to ban this new procedure because of a few myths and some loud mouthed conservatives.

Whether for good or bad, scientists are gradually getting closer to figuring out new ways to clone a human. An uproar from citizens who believe cloning is unethical has led to government officials banning scientists from experimenting on, what could have been the biggest scientific discovery. Dolly the sheep, the first ever mammal to be cloned, had caused conflict among citizens and scientists. Dolly was cloned using the nuclear transfer process, where scientists remove the DNA from an unfertilized egg and inject the DNA into the nucleus. This simple, yet complicated, process took place in 1996 and the scientific world has come a long way since. Dolly the sheep may have been “the world’s most famous sheep”, but her creation has introduced many problems. As a result of Dolly the sheep, numerous laws were passed that banned cloning and deeming it unethical.

Human cloning has not been legally used in humans because many people and experts are still discussing its effectiveness, worthiness and effect on humanity. Human cloning, also known as human genetic engineering, can be divided into two main types, which are therapeutic cloning, growing cloned tissue from individual, and reproductive cloning, genetically identical copy of an individual. Human cloning have drawn people’s attention because people are become more concerned about health problems and tried to find a methodology that can help them live longer and better; human cloning seems to be one of the possible choices. However, it is still being discussed its trade-off between benefits and risks. Despite medical benefits and advancement of

“To get a cell from an adult mammal to behave like a cell from a developing embryo had long since been abandoned at major centers of scientific research” (Healy, 176). The doubt of others didn’t sway Wilmut’s ideas. He used a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning in order to produce Dolly. This same technique has now been used for application of human stem cells to generate differentiated tissues (and this same technique could also be used to clone a human from an adult cell). Click on this animation on somatic cell nuclear transfer. Wilmut first took a nucleus from the mammary cells of a dead six-year-old Finn Dorset Sheep. He then substituted the nucleus for the nucleus of an egg from a different sheep- a Poll Dorset. Next, Wilmut implanted the egg into an ewe of a Scottish Blackface who became Dolly’s surrogate mother. Five months later, Dolly was born (Wills, 22). Wilmut used three different breeds of sheep so it would be apparent that Dolly’s genes did not come from her surrogate mother nor the egg donor, but from the six year old, Finn Dorset. In addition, in order to account for problems such as cells being in the wrong stage, or having the wrong set of genes turned on, or having cells that are too metabolically active, Wilmut starved the cells for several days. He then fused the starved cell with enucleated eggs. This made the DNA copying device in the cell to stop by “arresting the cell cycle and forcing the cells into