Human Cloning

+ The first human cloning company named Clonaid claimed that it had succeeded to clone as many as five babies who were born in different locations between 26 December 2002 and 4 February 2003. It was informed that the first cloned baby, named Eve, was given birth by an American lady. The mothers of the other cloned babies were including a Dutch lesbian and a Saudi Arabian Muslim. But Clonaid has failed to substantiate them with any evidence. In fact, one reputable scientific journal insists: “but in the absence of any information about the babies and any scientific proof that they were cloned, the claims are increasingly being dismisses as a lengthy publicity stunt”. In addition University of Pittsburgh researchers reported in the journal Science (10 April 2003) that the claim by Clonaid to have produced cloned babies is “something never verified”.

3. How to clone human? There are two commonly discussed types of human cloning: Therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning.

1. Therapeutic cloning: 

The production of cells form cloned human embryos either for use in research or to treat a disease. The stem cells are obtained from the inner cell mass of the embryo and then, by the use of growth factors, persuaded to develop into the required type. 

In therapeutic cloning, parts of the body could be cloned. Its stem cells would be then extracted and encouraged to grown into a piece of human tissues or a complete human organ for transplant. The end result would not be a human being; it would be a replacement organ, or piece of nerve tissue, of quantity of skin. The patient would not have to wait until an unrelated donor dies to obtain a transplant. A new organ could be grown for them as needed. This means that organs such as livers and kidneys can be cloned to be given to a patient in need of a transplant without being body-injection as it contains their own DNA.

In the near future, it is hoped that the process can be used success fully to replace, for example, the damaged, diseased cells of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or diabetes.

In fact, it is necessary for scientists to create the embryo initially. Once the nucleus or needed cells are removed, the embryo is destroyed. Does this not represent the killing of human life? The desire of overcoming degenerative diseases like those mentioned above is welcome but must it be at that cost? Perhaps for this reason, therapeutic cloning isn’t allowed in many countries.  Christian medical doctors prefer an alternative way and point to use the recently research with regard to adult stem cells. Peter Saunders reports that these have “already been used successfully in humans in the treatment of bowel, skin, and heart disease and in other mammals for a much broader range of illnesses’. What this means is that patients can be given therapeutic treatment without any human embryos being used or destroyed. That is very helpful news, isn’t it?

Moreover, one big problem is where would the eggs come from? It is estimated that it will take “100 eggs if you’re lucky” to produce a useable stem cell line. This means that if a cure for diabetes involving therapeutic cloning is found, it would take 1.5 billion eggs to cure 15 million Americans who have diabetes. In addition, extracting eggs form women is “painful, could be made for economic reasons, but if a method is found to use non-human eggs as source material, this type of human cloning will probably become generally useful. Research is underway to use rabbit eggs. During the process, “the embryo will lose all traces of its rabbit origin”.  Even if this research becomes successful, will you be happy with rabbit-based cells inside you? For me, I think it might be a helpful treatment and I’ll be satisfied with this anyway.  

2. Reproductive cloning: 

Reproductive cloning is a type of cloning which is performed for the purpose of creating a copy of another organism. This organism is the exact duplicate of one that already exists or has existed in the past. It is achieved using a process called “somatic cell nuclear transfer”. In 1996, Dolly, the first successfully cloned mammal, was born using this technique. Numerous other mammals have been cloned since then.

In somatic cell nuclear transfer, scientists extract the nucleus of a somatic cell, a cell which can come from anywhere in the body, and insert it into an egg (oocyte) which has had its nucleus removed already. The egg is stimulated, and it begins dividing and growing, developing into an embryo which can implanted in to a gestational surrogate and carried to term  This process of human reproductive cloning is termed asexual reproduction because all the genes of the clone are derived from a body cell of just one person.                                                                      

By contrast, in normal sexual reproduction a child benefits from receiving an equal number of genes from each of its parent. And in this normal process, there is no need of artificial assistance to fuse the female and male cells together.

Some issues have developed with reproductive cloning from a scientific perspective. Clones appear to have shorter life-spans. As I mentioned, many are stillborn and some survive only with severe defects. Thus, we have to concern about the disadvantages of reproductive cloning. There is also “the risk of losing genetic diversity as a result of using cloning, especially in the agricultural industry, scientific development, reproductive cloning was “heavily challenged in the scientific community when it first emerged, especially after scandals in which scientists claimed to have cloned animals but actually hadn't”. Governments are nervous about reproductive human cloning and many have acted to ban it. Many scientists urge extreme caution and some are still sceptical. 

Ethically, reproductive cloning approaches many inspiring issues. Some people are doubtful about the idea of being able to clone copies of living organisms, and question about the risks of using cloned animal in the food supply. Some believe that life begins at conception; they think reproductive cloning is unnatural and it could oppose their religious views. Psychologists and other people who study development are interested by “the potential to use reproductive cloning as a test of the famous nature versus nurture ”.  Like the others, I’m also sceptical about this type of cloning as almost the cloned died very young. Even if I couldn’t have children, I wouldn’t prefer using this neither. Nowadays, many women have been succeeded with IVF treatment, and their children grew healthily as well. For that reason, I think I’d rather use IVF treatment if I couldn’t have babies.

4. Conclusion: 

The references I used are all within 10 years so I think they are mostly reliable. But the technology changes and improves every day, therefore in the next 10 years time, everything can change differently. They might find out new alternatives to cloning, for instance they could store umbilical stem cells at birth for that person later in life. Or they could use induced stem cells from blood donors that are quite copious and have huge reservoirs. But there would be some drawbacks like failure to differentiate and be affected by drugs.

In “Human cloning right or wrong” by Dr Eryl Davies and also in “After Dolly” by Ian Wilmut (who is best known as the leader of the research group that created Dolly) and Roger Highfield, human cloning is both condemned as “playing God”. While Wilmut opposes to cloning babies, Dr Davies provides some evidences that having produced cloned babies is “something never verified”. But whether the government acts to ban it or not, human cloning is unpreventable to happen. Everyone has their own opinion about having a clone themselves. Yet in my opinion, since cloning is going to take place anyway, the government should accept it and look at the positive aspects that human cloning brings to human beings as well as seeking to support research facilities for scientists.