Human Cloning Essay Research Paper According to

Human Cloning Essay, Research Paper

According to Webster s New World Dictionary (1990), a clone is “all descendants derived asexually from a single organism.” In layman terms a clone is an exact duplicate of another organism, therefore a human clone would be a perfect copy of another human being. According to the American Medical Association, the scientific name for cloning is “somatic cell nuclear transfer,” which means the nucleus of an existing organism is transferred into an oocyte from which the nucleus has been removed (AMA 1998). In order to produce a clone, an unfertilized egg and a donor cell is needed. The donor cell can be anything from a piece of skin to a rib or hair follicle anything that has DNA encoded on it. The unfertilized egg is then fused with the donor cell and activated with an electrical current; this is then placed in the fallopian tubes of a surrogate mother. A clone grows in the same ways a natural fetus would grow and can be delivered in the same way as well, or can be grown in a laboratory. Cloning has a history that dates back sixty-three years, to 1938. In this year an adult frog cell was transplanted into the nucleus of an egg of another frog. Since 1938 many other animals have been cloned. In 1962 a tadpole was created from an adult cell, in 1979 three mice were cloned, and in 1984 a lamb was cloned from embryonic cells. The most prolific event in cloning history though, came about in 1996 when the first adult mammal cell was cloned. Embryologist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Scotland were the first to accomplish this feat. “Dolly” was created by taking an adult sheep cell and fusing it with a sheep egg and then growing the fetus. Although there is a chance that “Dolly” was a fluke caused by a rare mutation in a cell, most scientists believe this cloning was the first successful cloning of a mammal cell (Makovsky 1998). Once clones are produced they can be used in various ways and in many different situations. Clones may be used as a fertility aid for women who are unable to have children. Clones could be grown and then used for matching bone marrow, or clones could be used for organ donations for a sick patient. I believe these uses for cloning would be appropriate except for the fact that in order to clone one bone or one liver an entire person must first be created. Because of this, I believe human cloning is immoral and unethical and should be banned in the United States.

I believe cloning could be a possibility in the far-off future. I think this because I believe if it can be done safely and morally, it could benefit humans. Human cloning could be an option for infertile parents. It would also be a good option for bone marrow patients who need an exact match, but can t find a donor with it. Cloning could also be used to produce organs for people that need organ transplants and don t want to risk an organ being rejected by their bodies

But as of now I don t believe cloning is an appropriate action. Many people agree with me as well, after “Dolly” was cloned ninety percent of Americans felt that human cloning was “morally repugnant, (Makovsky 1998). But Americans were not the only ones who felt this way. Seventeen European countries have banned human cloning for reproductive purposes (Arundi 1999). This means that cloning could not be used by infertile parents to create a child.

In the United States four states have also banned cloning for reproductive purposes. In 1997 the National Bio-ethics Advisory Commission recommended a moratorium on cloning a child, so President Bill Clinton banned federal funds for human clone projects for the next five years. The ban, which will end this year, makes it illegal for scientists to experiment with human cloning. A bill was brought to the senate in 1998 to make human cloning a felony, unfortunately it was rejected. The bill if passed, would have prohibited the use of somatic-cell nuclear-transfer technology (the technology used in the process of cloning) and it would have brought with it the penalty of up to ten years in prison.

Other steps have been taken to try to ban human cloning, although most have turned out unsuccessfully. Just recently the Food and Drug Administration announced its authority to regulate human cloning. This announcement means that human clones, if ever produced, would basically be a product, much like meat or cigarettes, and clones would be controlled by the FDA.

Many of the reasons as to why legislation has been brought up in opposition of human cloning are due to many of the safety issues concerning human cloning. To create “Dolly” over two hundred sheep went under nuclear transfer, of those only twenty-nine succeeded in being implanted, and eventually only one (”Dolly”) was successfully cloned (Sinha, 2000). That low success rate may seem acceptable when working with animals like sheep and mice, but it is completely unacceptable when applied to human beings. In addition to an incredibly low success rate there are many birth defects that may result from cloning. For unknown reasons, clones grow larger than normal fetuses in the womb. This would cause problems for both the clone and surrogate mother. Deformities due to mutations in cells are also quite common in clones. In one experiment headless mice were intentionally cloned, and headless humans were discussed as a viable option for growing organs for donati