Asexual reproduction
Commercial cloning of plants:
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Clones are genetically, and physically, identical to the ‘parent’ plant.
- [so] If a particular breed or colour of plant is desired, it is much easier to make sure that that colour or breed is produced by asexually breeding it. This can take the form of taking cuttings, etc.
- There are disadvantages as well as disadvantages to this:
Advantages
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You can be sure of the characteristics of the plants.
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It is possible to produce huge numbers of the plants which may be harder to grow from seed, e.g. roses.
Disadvantages
- If the plants become susceptible to disease or sensitive to changes in the environment then all the plants will react in the same way, possibly killing all of them.
- The reduction in genetic variation reduces the possibility of further selective breeding.
Dolly the sheep
- Dolly was the first ever cloned sheep. Dolly was born in 1996 and was put down on 14th Feb. 2003.
- Dolly was created by Ian Wilmut and his team at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh.
- As Dolly’s genetic information came from a six year old sheep then questions have been asked about her true age. This means that she might not have died at the age of 6, but at the average age of 11 or 12. This is even more likely because the Roslin Institute decided the sheep should be put down after she developed a progressive lung disease, which is common in older sheep, so her death may mean nothing at all.
- Most people will still think she needed to be put down at this age because she was a clone which makes people see the negative side of cloning rather than the positive.
- It took 277 attempts to create Dolly which cost a lot of money.
- Many other animals including the cow, goat, mouse and cat, after Dolly, have been cloned, but many die before birth or are born with severe abnormalities.
Human cloning
- Because many animals are being born with abnormalities, and the huge expenses, people are becoming very sceptical of human cloning.
- Human cloning can be done but it will take hundreds or even thousands of attempts and it will cost huge amounts of money.
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Every time the attempt is unsuccessful, it means that the “mother” has had a miscarriage, possibly causing her to be upset.
- In the future, cloning could become successful, but more knowledge is needed on the way the human body produces when it is being cloned, to know where the problems are that are causing failed attempts.
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There has only been one successfully cloned human being, which was a baby girl in America. She was born in December 2002. Her name is Eve and she was apparently produced by the ‘Raelians’ (a sect that believes that humans were created by aliens in laboratories on another planet).
- There are, of course, some disadvantages as well as some advantages.
For
- People, who have died, can be reborn.
- Stem cell cloning will provide a never ending supply of healthy organs.
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Couples, who are unable to have children of their own, will be able to have children, although there is the question of whether one of them will be cloned, or someone else.
Against
- A religious person could argue that God made everyone unique and different and that is how it should stay.
- If a person has died and is recreated, their clone can die early, because it’s genetic age will be the same as their genetic age (as we saw with Dolly the sheep).
Conclusion
After evaluating the above information, I conclude that human cloning should not be banned. This is because, if an individual knows all the risks and complications, and still decides on proceeding with the cloning, it is their decision and it should be available for them. If cloning is banned, and someone is firm on having it done, they can go abroad to somewhere where it is legal and have it done, there as the woman who gave birth to Eve (the baby girl from above). Although I am not religious, I agree with some religious people who say that if God didn’t want us to use this technology, why would he let us discover it and use it in the first place?
I do, although, understand why people would disagree because of their religious views and other scientific evidence: such as abnormalities and the poor successes rates. I also admit that the clone can have a premature death or develop the same diseases that the ‘donor’ has (or will have) at the age of the DNA being taken, as Dolly did, which could cause suffering for the clone and those around it.
I believe my evidence and sources have used scientific knowledge, as 6 of the 11 are from science websites/books and the rest are from BBC News which, because of the nature of the story, uses scientific terminology and explanations.
Bibliography
- From OCR science book – Lonsdale revision guide.
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2610993.stm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexual_reproduction
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2764069.stm
- GCSE Biology AJ633 teacher support
- http://www.biology-resources.com/drawing-amoeba-reproduction.html
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2610993.stm
- http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DKUK_en___GB206&q=asexual+reproduction
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2610755.stm
- http://www.genesolutions.com/page10.html
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2610795.stm
