Does cloning benefit or endanger society?

Authors Avatar

Does cloning benefit or endanger society?

Marley Gibbons-Balfour

Case Study: Biology

Contents

Introduction                          1

Background Science             2

Arguments against               4

Arguments for                       7

Summary                             10

Conclusion                           11

Bibliography                        12

Introduction

Cloning has quickly become one of the most contentious issues in modern society, along with other issues like abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia. Due to the conflicted teachings and ideologies of many people in the world, there is no general consensus about cloning. Some people feel that it could benefit humans (through cures, through solving infertility and through knowledge), while others feel it could endanger humans and is a bad thing (due to ethical issues and due to being unaware of what could happen if it didn’t work).

Because of this, I have decided to investigate whether cloning actually does benefit or endanger society. I will go about this by collecting 6 sources (3 against cloning and 3 for cloning) and evaluating the evidence they present with the hope of coming to an unbiased conclusion of whether cloning benefits or endangers mankind. I will aim to collect my sources from a number of different places and resources in order to make my final conclusion more reliable.

It should be noted that much of what is discussed in the field of cloning is hypothetical as humans have yet to do many of these things. This means that the topic will be very relevant in the future, and therefore I have decided that the target audience for this case study will be teenagers, as they are our future generation.

An example of the results that successful reproductive cloning could yield

Background Science

Cloning is the process of creating an organism or tissue which is genetically identical to another organism or tissue. Genes are sections of DNA, found in the nuclei of cells, which contain information for the production of proteins. A clone has the same genes – and therefore proteins – as the original organism, which is why they are considered to be identical.

The process of cloning can be used to make clones of a number of organisms, including plants and animals, and also a number of tissues, like muscle cells. There are three main types of cloning currently, reproductive cloning, therapeutic cloning and natural cloning.

Reproductive cloning is the cloning of an entire organism. This is done through the process of nuclear transfer. In this process, a cell is taken from an organism (let’s say Cat A for this example). The nucleus is taken out of the cell and is treated with chemicals so that undesired genes are turned off and desired genes are turned on. It is then put into an empty egg cell, where the whole cell should become reprogrammed. Electrical impulses then stimulate the egg cell and cause it to undergo the process of mitosis until it becomes an 8-cell embryo. At this stage it is placed into a surrogate mother. Upon birth, a genetically identical – though infant – Cat A will have been created.

This diagram shows the process of cloning a baby using nuclear transfer. As you can see, a nucleus from a person’s body cell is removed and placed in an empty egg cell which has had its nucleus removed. It is then placed into a surrogate mother, develops into a zygote, then an embryo and finally a baby. The baby will be a clone of the person that provided the nucleus for the empty egg cell.

Attempts to clone in this way are often unsuccessful. There is a success rate of 0.1% to 3%. This is because it is difficult to get the process of nuclear transfer to work. There are a number of reasons for this:

- The empty egg cell and the transferred nucleus may not be compatible

- Like any pregnancy, the birth could fail

- Implanting the embryo into the surrogate may fail

- The egg cell, once stimulated with electrical impulses, may not divide properly, meaning it will not become an embryo

Therapeutic cloning is cloning with the aim of creating embryonic stem cells to help patients. This also uses nuclear transfer, but instead of producing whole organisms, this time it helps to produce tissues for repair.

In the process, a cell is a taken from a patient, and the nucleus from this cell is taken and put inside an empty egg cell. From here, mitosis should occur and an embryo should grow. Once this has happened, the embryonic stem cells from the embryo are taken and treated with chemicals to turn on desired genes and turn off undesired genes. Because embryonic stem cells are unspecialized cells which can turn into any kind of cell, the treatment with chemicals allow for us humans to choose which cells we want to be made. This is how the tissue the patient requires is made.

This diagram shows the process of therapeutic cloning. It shows that a zygote, either a cloned one or a natural one, is what is used for the process. Once the zygote becomes an embryo and then a blastocyst, the embryonic stem cells that make it up are then harvested and form different types of tissues that can be used for therapeutic uses.

If the patient requires a new kidney, and a new kidney is made using this form of cloning, it is certain that the new kidney will be compatible with the patient’s body as it genetically identical to the original kidney.

Like reproductive cloning, the success rate for therapeutic cloning is quite low due to difficulties in the nuclear transfer process.

Arguments against

Source 1

Title: Frontiers of cloning

From: New Scientist article by Ian Wilmut published on 4th August 2010 (magazine article 2772)        

                                           

Join now!

The underlying message coming from this source is that reproductive cloning should not be used to create new life as too much effort and resources are used to achieve such little success.  It is clear that Ian Wilmut feels the cons outweigh the pros in this case, and this is made evident as he states that ‘the possibility for harm far outweighs any conceivable benefits.’

Ian Wilmut’s evidence for his idea is that only 1 of the 277 reprogrammed eggs – eggs which have had their nuclei removed, and then replaced by the nucleus of a patient’s ...

This is a preview of the whole essay