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The issue of Cloning Cloning The issue of cloning has always been around in our everyday lives. Cloning was common in movies such a as Jurassic Park and The Lost World, where cloning seemed to be an idea of fantasy and not reality. The idea that scientist could just take a little DNA from a dead mosquito and turn it into something that could tower over a skyscraper was very intriguing to most people. On the other hand, there were movies such as Alien Resurrection, in which cloning was necessary in order to save lives.
That was a little more farfetched, but no less enthralling. The idea of even cloning oneself came up in the movie Multiplicity. The idea seemed common but unaccomplished yet, for who would not want an extra pair of hands or better yet an extra brain? However, these movies are just that, movies. It was not until the creation of Dolly, who was acknowledged to be the first cloned mammal, was cloned that cloning became an actual reality. It was looked upon in wonder and much skepticism of what would happen next.
When Richard Seed, a renowned scientist, announced that he had decided to clone himself, and that his wife would carry the egg to term, mass hysteria arose (Scientist Wants to Clone Himself). Different countries all over the world tried to pass laws to ban cloning despite being unsuccessful. There is more that one method of cloning that exists today. Artificial Twining is one existing method. This procedure begins when an egg has been fertilized by sperm and starts dividing. If it divides into an eight cell embryo and those eight cells are separated, those cells can be implanted into the uteri of eight separate mothers.
Then eight clones will be born of different mothers (Ways to Clone Mammals). The second method of cloning is a bit more complicated and much more controversial. Nuclear transfer is the method by which the first mammal clone, Dolly, was created. This procedure starts out with an unfertilized egg cell and a skin cell of the mammal to be cloned. The nucleus is then removed from the egg, thus taking out all of its genetic identity. Next the skin cell is placed inside the egg; an electric pulse is then used to fuse the egg cell and the skin cell together.
The electrical pulse also allows the reconstructed and now fertilized egg to divide. The fertilized egg is then placed inside a uterus to develop further (WTCM). Many say that some form of nuclear transfer will be the method by which the first human clone is developed. This is probably believed because this is the method that most mammal clones have been produced.
By the end of 2000, eight species of mammals had been cloned, including mice, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and rats (Ethical Aspects of Human Cloning). There have been between 3, 000 and 5, 000 animal clones produced to date. The medical value of cloning is very evident. Cloning allows scientists to better understand cell differentiation.
Cell differentiation is when a stem cell, found inside embryos during the first two weeks of development, specializes into cells that perform specific functions. Research on the basic process of cell differentiation can lead to dramatic new medical interventions. Lets say that you are on the verge of kidney failure and your only hope to survive is a kidney transplant, but you are on a long waiting list and you do not have that much time. Through their knowledge of cellular differentiation scientist would be able to grow a cloned kidney, and thus there would not be a long waiting list (A Twist on Creation). Another medical value of cloning is that there may be a way to fight disease by putting disease fighting agents in the genetic makeup of cows milk or chicken eggs. The Roslin Clinic is an example of such a scenario.
There are reports that Roslin is working on the production of a genetically engineered chicken whose eggs would fight cancer. The eggs would be produced with an anticancer protein (Cloning Report: Egg Medicine). Another reason cloning could be useful is to keep endangered spices of plants and animals from growing extinct. Scientists could make genetic reproductions of animals and therefore increase the population of those animals to keep them from becoming extinct. Scientists could also make genetic reproductions of rare plants that could one day prove to help in the fight of disease. Cloning could also be beneficial to potential parents who cannot naturally conceive or parents who have recently lost a young child.
Imagine a couple who has tried everything possible to conceive a child or a mother who is so distraught by the death of her young daughter that she can not carryout normal daily activities. Scientists can help both of these people through the process of nuclear transfer. There may be many medical values for cloning, but there are also many dangers and ethical issues that must be addressed when talking about cloning. It is true that scientists have produced many health clones, but do they tell the public how many times their attempts failed? Do they tell the public how many of the clones have come out deformed or dead upon birth? In the case of Dolly there were 277 attempts at cell fusion, and only twenty-nine of those attempts even began to divide.
Out of the twenty-seven that were implanted into surrogate mothers only thirteen of the ewes became pregnant, and of the 13 Dolly was the only lamb born (Ethical Aspects of Cloning). Even the scientist who cloned Dolly, Ian Wilmut, has come out against human cloning. Wilmut says that the failure rate for clones is still over 98 %, and that it would be criminally irresponsible for scientists to be experimenting on humans (Baby, it s you! And you, and you) (Baby). The risk lies not just with potential babies born deformed, as many animal clones are; not just with desperate couples and cancer patients and other potential clients whose hopes may be raised and hearts broken and life savings wiped out (Baby). Lets say for a moment that scientists did perfect human cloning and decreased the failure rate, and a couple that has just lost their three year old daughter decides to clone her.
Cloning, even if it works, is not resurrection (Baby). The clone would not be the same little girl. One s personality is formed by their experiences and the environment that they are subjected to. Another scenario would be a couple who learns that they can not naturally have children.
They decide to have a child cloned after the husband. Do you think that it should bother the woman knowing that she is actually raising her husband as a little boy? Cloning is not a way of bringing someone back from the dead or even immortality. Cloning is, in effect, a very unsuccessful and dangerous procedure that may in time do more harm than good. When the announcement came that there had been the birth of the first cloned animal, Dolly, it triggered a reaction all over the world. Many countries banned cloning all together.
In the United States, the House of Representatives and the Senate immediately drafted bills to completely ban human cloning, and President Clinton established a committee to address the science and ethics of human cloning. This committee was called the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC). The NBAC finally ruled that human cloning is morally unacceptable. The meaning of what it is to be human which until now has involved, at the very least, the mysterious melding of two different people s DNA will shift forever, along with our understanding of the relationship between parents and children, means and ends, ends and beginnings (Baby). Works Cited @@ A Twist on Creation.
Oct. 2000. March 6, 2001. @@ Cloning Report: Egg Medicine. Coghlan, Andy. March 6, 200 Ethical Aspects of Human Cloning. March 6, 200 Scientist Wants to Clone Himself. 1998 - 1999. March 6, 200 Ways to Clone Mammals.
Koyotic Development. March 3, 1999. March 6, 2001...
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