Cloning Moral and Ethical Aspects.

Authors Avatar

Cloning Moral and Ethical Aspects

Introduction

In 1997 a Scottish researcher, Ian Wilmut had successfully cloned an adult sheep. It took about three hundred tries to get it right and explicitly it appeared to be relatively simple in terms of technique and the used equipments. The initial public and professional response to the announcement of the new technique was one of concern. In some cases, these responses were mistaken of how this new technology may reshape our future. The source of these feelings was fear of the fact that this new technique would allow human cloning, and would allow for an unlimited number of genetically similarities. The birth of the cloned sheep “Dolly” is an illustration of the ethical responsibilities of the scientists toward their community where they live and serve and toward the public fear and anxiety that the scientific achievement provokes. I will examine some of the public and official responses, as well as some of the most important applications on human cloning, and the potential promises.

There are two different techniques for cloning.  The first one is by cell mass division or “embryo splitting”, and the other one is by nuclear substitution, the technique used to create “Dolly”. I will start with the first technique, which is the mass division because it is the only technique that has been used on human beings.

Cell mass division

Although this technique was widely used on lower and higher levels of animals’ long time ago; it was first used to multiply human embryos in October 1993, by Jerry Hall and Robert Stillman, at George Washington Medical Center. (2000). They cloned human embryos by splitting early two- to eight-cell embryos into single embryo cells. Each embryo cell will grow up to create a distinct individual, completely separated from the other embryo cells. One of the uses of this technique is to provide a twin embryo.

Join now!

Cloning using the cell mass division does not produces copies of the same individual. It only produces two individuals with the same genotype. Each individual will have his or her own life with completely independent characters from the other twin. To clone somebody is not create mutable copies of the same person. Why do we feel apprehensive towards cloning and feel happy when natural twins are born?

 If the argument was that cloning produces identical individuals separated in time, may be years apart. We should never forget that cloning will only produce twins with the same genotype which means that ...

This is a preview of the whole essay