Friday Focus Seminar Handout: CLONING
By Sarah Choo-Yick
and Shivali Sikki
What is a
clone?
A clone is an exact genetic copy of a living thing. Thus, a clone can be an animal, human, or plant genetically identical to its “donor” parent. The gene of a clone determines its characteristics like hair color, eye color, and height. Therefore cloning is a type of eugenics. Eugenics is the science of developing a human or animal population using controlled breeding.
The life of a clone begins in a laboratory petri dish. There are five steps to cloning:
1) Enucleation of the recipient egg 2) Transfer of the donor cell into the egg cell
3) Fusion of the nucleus of both cells 4) Culturing the embryo in an incubator
5) Transferring the developing embryo
into the uterus of woman
This act is illegal in some countries and has just been terminated in Canada on October 28th, 2003. Those who are interested in human cloning are infertile couples, those fascinated to see an exact replica of them, and people who have died and would like to relive a new life. Up to this date, human cloning has not yet been possible since many problems arise in its process and many ethical questions are placed towards its outcomes.
Some people are against human cloning, while others support it. Their decision is based on their desires and their religion. Those who are definitely against human cloning are anti-abortion lobbyists and Roman Catholics. Scientists are for this technology, while some Christian sects, Muslims, doctors, and everyday citizens have split decisions.
Arguments that are likely to arise in a debate over human cloning are:
- the physical and psychological beings of the clone
- the quality of parenting and family life of a clone
- the objection of cloned children
- the use of scarce resources in the nation for research
- Going against God’s will
The long term and short term effects of human cloning are the physical harm, psychological harm, degradation of the quality of parenting and family life, the human dignity problem, and the objection of children. The physical harm a child may go through depends on the accelerated process of aging. The psychological harm is a short term effect, since the brain of a person can never be duplicated, while a life cannot change when the family uses the child. Lastly, the child is treated like an object to serve needs.
Religion
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Roman Catholics
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Jewish Religion
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Protestants
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Islamic Religion
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Views
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-Disagree with it since it is an act of evil -The religious and ethical tradition of their views are based on the story of creation -This story says, “Humans are responsible for maintaining and preserving what nature created” |
-Agree with cloning because it is said “And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it” -Some think that cloning can break up family relationships |
-Some agree and others disagree -They agree because they interpret the creation story as if we should participate with God in shaping the world -They disagree because “children should be conceived in a marital union between opposite sexes” |
-Some agree and others disagree -They agree because there should be no limits on research since God gave us knowledge -They disagree because it affects kinship (parents-child bond), which is a key concept of Islamic law |
Social Effects:
- The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) banned companies that sell cloned meat. Companies say the meat are still safe to eat, although they are abnormal
- Eugenics can be a main problem in society if cloning becomes widespread. This will be so because the only people who are able to pay for cloning are likely to be rich Anglo-Saxon people
- Sometimes a new disease can spread to cloned animals or those used in the cloning process and we can become fatally ill by eating the meat
- Clones look identical but think differently; so the evil side will cause crimes
Economic Effects:
- The consumers would not want to buy any meat with infection (disease) thus business will drop greatly
- People who want to have a cloned animal pay a lot of money, thus more money is going to the scientists who perform this cloning process
- Farmers make a large amount of money, since all of the cloned animals will be excellent breeds
Political Effects:
- Many war villains buy the cloning technology from the black market. This way, you can have a clone of yourself, here and way over there, thus fooling your opponents