The Cloning Controversy Essay

The dangers that arise from reproductive cloning are numerous, and are enough to validate the banning of human reproductive cloning altogether. During mammalian reproductive cloning, a large proportion of clones suffered from weakened immune systems, which greatly compromised the animal’s ability to fight off infection, disease, and other disorders. “Animal experiments in cloning all indicate that a cloned twin is at high risk of congenital defects, multiple health problems and perhaps a greatly shortened life span.” (Paulson) In addition, many of the offspring produced through cloning suffer massive abnormalities, such as missing or deformed organs. Approximately 30% of offspring are diagnosed with “large offspring syndrome” and other debilitating conditions. In fact, studies on reproductive cloning have shown that more than 90% of

Human reproductive cloning is a type of cloning that involves somatic cell nuclear transfer and the embryo duplicates the genome of solely one parent, a type of asexual reproduction that is foreign to the human species. This form of reproduction differs from normal sexual reproduction where the baby duplicates genomes of both parents (Hayry 2003). Despite popular beliefs that view reproductive cloning as a carbon copy of human beings, in actuality it creates a genetically and physically identical twin of its progenitor but socially and psychologically it reproduces an unique human being (Morales 2009).

The 21st century however forecasts an astonishing increase in innovation in another direction. While previously overshadowed by its larger cousins, physics and chemistry, it seems likely that the biological sciences will steal the limelight in the future. Mapping the genome, reversing the aging process, and finding a cure for terminal illnesses, all represent primary objectives for science. Unfortunately, the ethical questions posed by innovations in biomedicine are far greater than those posed by advances in the physical sciences. Reproductive cloning is one of these innovations, and one that arguably poses the greatest threat to the world as we know it. The universal truth, blindly accepted by man for millennia, held that a human could only be born through the sexual union of a male and a female, to be exact, of an egg and a sperm. By cloning, however, a human life can be created in the laboratory. This is done by taking human DNA and inserting it into an egg cell, sans genetic material. The resultant cell is identical to the original, and can then be inserted into a uterus, either a human or an animal one, and be grown to term, to produce a baby, while circumventing nature’s means of reproduction.

There are two main types of Reproductive Cloning, Blastomere Separation (Embryo Splitting) and cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technology (Cibelli et al. 478). “Blastomere separation is the making of multiple copies of a genome by separating or multiplying the individual cells of an early embryo (Cibelli et al. 478).” This process can make multiple identical genotypes possible. SCNT Technology is the use of a somatic (body) cell nucleus from an existing (or deceased) person to copy the genome of that individual (Cibelli et al. 478). There are two uses to this technology, the procreative uses and the deliberate replicative uses. People who cannot have a biologically related child any other way would use the procreative SCNT technology. It appeals to both gays and lesbians or just people who want to avoid transmitting a disease through sexual reproduction (Cibelli et al. 478). The purpose is to obtain a healthy child who is directly related to his/her parents, not to re-create a living genotype (Cibelli et al. 478). On the

All the human embryonic stem cell lines currently in use come from four to five-day-old embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures. In IVF, researchers mix a man 's sperm and a woman 's eggs together in a lab dish. Some of those eggs will become fertilized. At about five days the egg has divided to become a hollow ball of roughly 100 cells called a blastocyst which is smaller than the size of the dot over an “i”. ("Myths and Misconceptions About Stem Cell Research.")

Stem cells are grown on Petri dishes in a laboratory and are never implanted in a woman’s uterus. These cells can be used to create stem cell lines that can grow indefinitely under optimal conditions (“Stem cells and diseases,” 2011). Embryonic stem cells can be obtained from existing stem cell lines (any group of cells that came from the same original embryo), aborted or miscarried embryos, unused in vitro fertilized embryos, and cloned embryos created from somatic cell nuclear transfer (the nucleus from an unfertilized egg is removed and replaced with a nucleus from an adult stem cell). This technique would be used for therapeutic cloning, which could grow organs or skin grafts for patients. However, the only research that is federally funded are a few embryonic stem cell lines created from unused embryos at in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics before 2001 (Dunn, 2005; “Embryonic & fetal research laws,” 2008; Therapeutic cloning, 2009). These lines are not enough to allow scientists to fully explore and take advantage of potential findings.

hen people think of the word “cloning” they often have in mind frightening images of duplicates of humans in a kind of mad scientist experiment. In fact, many people were outraged when Dolly came as a result of a cloning experiment in Scotland (Brown, 2009). Therapeutic cloning, however, is completely different and does not involve the creation of a perfect copy from another human being. In therapeutic cloning, fertilization of sperm or eggs is not implanted into the uterus to create a child. Therapeutic cloning is a phase of a procedure known as somatic cell transfer (SCNT) In this procedure; scientists take a somatic cell from the nucleus of an egg (the nucleus contains genetic material) and then it is transplanted. In practical applications

clone is created, and this act of reproductive cloning is regarded with controversy; is it

Science today is developing at warp speed. We have the potential to do many things, which include the cloning of actual humans and animals. The question no longer seems to be if we will clone humans, but when? Somewhere, sometime, a human clone will be born. This fact has exploded the world into a global debate. Will large armies of soldiers be raised to fight our wars? Or perhaps we will create a race of slaves to do our dirty work. Cloning is becoming more credible and concrete idea rather than a bizarre dream that would never come true. The process of cloning inevitably involves throwing away fertilized embryos. At the current stage of development, many of the embryos selected to live fail to develop and eventually die before

Cloning Dolly, the sheep in 1996 was a momentous moment in scientific history. Scientists removed the nucleus from one of Dolly 's skin cells and engineered an egg to be insert with then nucleus. This egg could have fertilized in a mothers ' uterus. Following this discovery, mice, pigs and cattle have been cloned based on the same concept. In 2012, a group of scientists took cloning a step further and cloned human embryos. With great certainty, human cloning will be banned by the government due to human rights. The government has already deemed it illegal to fund human cloning projects. Despite the human rights issue, cloning serves a great role in research. These cloned embryos will help understand the biological nature of human cells and the human body. Also the embryos will help advance medical treatments for a wide variety of diseases. Cloning is vital to genetic engineering. Problems do arise from such an advancement. Exploration of women would be a major issue due to the fact that these cloned embryos need to be implanted into a women 's ' uterus in order to under go gestation. Almost all scientific developments pose positive and negative outcomes.

The issues of whether or not cloning is ethical, safe or even actually possible are hotly debated in the scientific, political and religious communities. The amount of debate that has taken place and regulation placed on the scientific community around cloning is so great, it’s a testimony to the level of impact this biotechnology has on society, all in spite of the fact that it’s still not known whether or not the most feared type of cloning, Human Reproductive Cloning, is actually possible.

If we continue human cloning, scientists hypothesize that somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) will be the way. SCNT begins when doctors take an egg from a female donor. Once they remove the nucleus, the create an enucleated egg. A DNA cell is taken from the human being cloned. Next, the enucleated fuses with the subject's cell. This will create an embryo that is implanted in the mother. If the attempt was a success, the mother gives birth to the clone. However the success rate is only one or two out of 100

Therapeutic cloning is very revolutionary in the sense that you need human embryos as the

Research involving embryonic stem cells is now one of the biggest projects in the world of modern science and scientific breakthroughs. Stem cells are basically cells that can develop into any kind of differentiated cell type in the body (Freeman 2011). This means that a young and healthy stem cell is able to become a variety of distinct cells in the body, each kind of cell playing a different role and function for that specific organism. Stem cells generally come from fully matured tissue or from a developing embryo that is in the phase of being a blastocyst (Crosta 2013). Being that they are found in places like the blood, skin, or skeletal muscles, these adult stem cells remain in an idle state until there is a destructive stress on the

Stem cells are nature’s own transformer. Stem cells have the extraordinary opportunity to develop into several different cell types in the body during early stages of life and development. Furthermore, in countless tissues they act as an internal repair system, dividing effectively without limit to replace other cells as long as the person or animal is still living. When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the chance to either stay a stem cell or become another type of cell with an additional specialized function, such as a red blood cell or a muscle cell.