History of cloning
Cloning has been researched for many years stemming back to as early as the late 1800s when Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch cloned the first animal, a sea urchin. Dreich took a two celled embryo of a sea urchin and shook it in a beaker full of sea water until the two cells separated. Each grew independently, and formed a separate, whole sea urchin. Driesch work was later confirmed with greater precision by fellow embryologist Hans Spemann. Spemann also played a major role in the advancement of cloning as he was the first to propose the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer.
Since the early 1900s there were no major advances in cloning until November 1951, when a team of scientists in Philadelphia cloned a frog embryo. This team used the process of nuclear transfer finally completing Spemann's work from 50 years ago.
The most famous example of cloning occurred in 1996 when Dolly the Sheep, the first successfully cloned mammal, was born. She was cloned by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh in Scotland. Since Dolly many different species of animals have been cloned including deer, dogs and horses.
How Cloning Benefits Society
Source 1: Excerpt from the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Guidelines taken from NIH.gov.
"...research involving human pluripotent stem cells...promises new treatments and possible cures for many debilitating diseases and injuries, including Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, burns and spinal cord injuries. The NIH believes the potential medical benefits of human pluripotent stem cell technology are compelling and worthy of pursuit in accordance with appropriate ethical standards."
This source is recognising some of the diseases and injuries that stem cell research could potentially treat and in doing so provides a strong case for the benefits of cloning. Many of these injuries and diseases currently have no effective form of treatment and the use of stem cells could solve this. The greatest argument for the illegalisation of cloning, the ethical issues, are acknowledged in this source as it states that stem cells are 'worthy in pursuit in accordance with appropriate ethical standards' reinforcing the idea that this particular form of cloning can benefit society.
The source was published by the National Institutes of Health in August 2000. The National Institutes of Health is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health related research and the support of such a respected agency is evidence of how beneficial stem cell research can be. The information provided by the source is very reliable as the NIH has a vast level of expertise in this area and their statements are likely backed by extensive research.
Source 2: An article from Helium.com
"The cloning of specific human organs can also be used to save the lives of the thousands. Over 50 percent of the people who need a transplant in the United States will die before they get one. The cloning of human organs without cloning an entire human being can provide an alternative to xenotransplantation. Cloned human organs will also take away the problem of rejection by the body's immune system. This provides the sick with perfectly matching donor materials that the patient requires."
This source details the ways in which organ cloning can benefit society. The source suggests that if cloning organs became routine it would greatly reduce the number of people who die before they get an organ transplant. It could also remove the possibility of transplant rejection. The current method of organ transplantation runs the risk of transplant rejection due to the recipient's immune system attacking the transplanted organ. Organ cloning could potentially eliminate this issue as the organ would be cloned from the recipients DNA and will be a complete genetic match. These benefits could save thousands of lives providing a strong case for cloning being beneficial to society.
This source was taken from Helium.com a website where writers publish scientific articles which are rated by other writers in a form of peer review system. This source shows how human cloning can be used to benefit human lives without the need to create complete human clones which is often considered to be the most controversial part of cloning. The author of this source is a student studying science so his lack of experience hurts the reliability of this source somewhat but this source is mainly comprised of facts backed up with research ultimately making this source quite reliable.
Source 3: Article from catalogs.com
"Those who object to animal research often cite the genetic variance in lab animals as proof that any results obtained in the lab cannot be generalized. Mouse A may react well to a drug, while Mouse B does not. Is it the fault of the drug or genetics? Cloning would allow researchers to standardize the genetic makeup of animals used in a given test. This would, they claim, allow them to better assess the results of any drug trials or other experimental procedures."
This source presents one of the advantages of animal cloning claiming that cloned animals could lead to more accurate experimental procedures regarding animals. By cloning an animal, for example a mouse, it will allow scientists to perform experiments on animals with more accuracy as it can insure that variables in genetics are kept the same when repeating experiments.
The source was taken from the website catalogs.com and was written by freelance article writer Lindsay Richardson. Richardson has degrees in English, Psychology, Business, Public Administration and Political Philosophy proving a great level of intellect and education reinforcing the reliability of this source.
How Cloning Endangers Society
Source 4: article from buzzle.com
"While the advocates of human cloning are armed with reasons to support their stand, the critics of the same don't seem to be impressed. Human cloning critics are of the opinion that creating a human clone would mean interfering with the natural process of procreation. At the same time, one needs to also ponder upon the fact that if genes are modified to create smarter human beings by means of cloning, what would happen to the average humans who are not the products of this process. Critics also cite the fact that cloning will result in a huge divide among people, and clones will not be subjected to equal treatment. In a world full of divides on the basis of race and caste, we can't afford to have one more reason to add to the differences."
This source presents some of the issues with human cloning stating how human clones could have a negative impact on society, potentially making natural born humans redundant and creating a divide between clones and normal humans. While providing a big potential social problem with reproductive human cloning this source only gives speculation meaning this source isn't completely useful when discussing how cloning can endanger society.
The source was taken from buzzle.com a respectable website which prides itself with containing intelligent and thought provoking articles regarding life and was written by Abhijit Naik, an accomplished writer, who likely did extensive research before posting this article. These two factors make the article an overall reliable one however the writers lack of expertise in this area hurts the reliability of the source.
Source 5: Poll by ABC news asking whether cloning should be legal
This source shows that public opinion is heavily in favour of making cloning illegal. Human cloning in particular is disapproved with every demographic being overwhelmingly in favour of making it illegal. The only groups of people that believe any type of cloning should be made legal are high income earning people and non-religious people. The fact that public opinion is so against cloning suggests that if cloning became common practice their would be outrage among society.
The source was conducted by telephone among a random sample of 1024 adults and had an error margin of only 3% making the results reliable. However the poll was conducted in 2001 making the results dated as public opinion regarding cloning has likely changed over 10 years.
Source 6: Editorial from the Daily Mail
"The first ever mammal to be cloned from an adult body cell was the celebrated Dolly the sheep in the late nineties, produced at the Roslin Institute.
She died young — or was put out of her misery — after suffering various premature forms of degeneration. More to the point, she was the only success out of more than 300 attempts at cloning. Most of the cloned cells simply failed to form embryos and presumably died without suffering. But several lambs were born which died within a few days, generally deformed and in distress."
This source recognises some of the problems with animal cloning mentioning how cloned animals are born imperfect and suffer a great deal before dying.
It was published in the Daily Mail, a respected British newspaper, and was written by Colin Tudge who is both a journalist and biologist ultimately making this source reliable.
Conclusion
I believe that the use of therapeutic cloning is a necessary step in the advancement of medical science. The possibilities that stem cell research offer in way of curing currently incurable diseases and treating severe injuries is remarkable and source 1 perfectly illustrates this as Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, burns and spinal cord injuries are all listed as diseases and injuries that could be potentially treated with the use of stem cells.
Organ cloning is another viable form of cloning as it could save thousands of lives. The current methods used for organ transplants runs the risk of transplant rejection and use of organ cloning for transplants could potentially eliminate these risks as cloning could produce organs with an identical genotype as the recipient. Source 2 supports this notation as it says that 'Cloned human organs will also take away the problem of rejection by the body's immune system.' It will also significantly reduce the need for organ donation which is neccesary as 'over 50 percent of the people who need a transplant in the United States will die before they get one.'
However I believe that reproductive animal cloning is wrong as it often fails and produces animals plagued with disease and deformities. Source 6 supports this as it claims that 'several lambs were born which died within a few days, generally deformed and in distress.' I believe that there are few benefits that could arise from animal cloning other than a form of preserving endangered species but even that is flawed as it offers no real solution to the most pressing problems that endangered animals face such as poaching, climate change and habitat loss, it also creates a form of inbreeding that could be detrimental to the species.
Above all I think that the reproductive cloning of humans should not be researched as creating humans oversteps the boundaries of what scientists should be allowed to do. I believe that the idea of creating clones as an alternative for people with infertility problems or, even worse, for replacing the deceased, trivialises human life.
However many may disagree with me. Many believe that therapeutic cloning is unethical. Since the embryo is destroyed when the stem cells are removed people often use the term 'baby killing' to describe therapeutic cloning. I however believe that embryos have not developed enough to be considered anymore than just cells with the potential to become life and 'killing' these cells is not immoral.
Some even believe that reproductively cloning humans offers benefits to society however I disagree. While it does offer alternatives for couples struggling with infertility issues I believe there are better alternatives such as IVF and adoption. Echoing what Abhijit Naik said in source 4, clones also may be discriminated against should they be introduced into our society.
Overall, after extensive research into the controversies of cloning, I have concluded that cloning can benefit society in many ways but can endanger it as well if boundaries are not set. Scientists must do their best to benefit human kind without overstepping the boundaries and becoming no different from mad scientists from horror films like Dr. Frankenstein.
Bibliography
URLs Used:
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www.buzzle.com/articles/human-cloning-pros-and-cons.html
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1299804/COLIN-TUDGE-Cloning-cruelty-science-sold-greed.html
http://nealo.com/2007/02/15/lets-all-say-no-to-cloning-feb-15-2007/
