What are the issues related to cloning

Issues created at the birth of “Dolly” the Sheep

This issue was so serious for people all around the world because the birth of Dolly with the use of cloning was, and is still not accepted by many communities as some fear that this process might lead to many problems, extinction of beings, being one of the problems.

The main issue , however , was that Dolly had too many diseases and that ethically it was wrong to put give so much trouble to the sheep as it was a living creature and not a tangible object.

The main communities who were concerned were:

·       Religious groups

·       Animal welfare groups

·       Food safety authority

·       Environmental organizations

·       the Health and Human Services Committee

WHAT ARE THE ISSUES REGARDING HUMAN CLONING?

The news of successfully cloned animals has created great concerns among religious leaders, legislators and other international organizations. All these communities have different reasons for not accepting cloned humans and animals.

Religious concerns

Religion plays a very important role in the opposition of human cloning .Religious leaders are greatly concerned about the cloning of human because they think that it is not a natural process and that no one should play God.The main arguments of scholars of different religions are:

“* God is the Creator not humans. We have no right to interfere with God's plan.
* Loss of Kinship - as the clone does not really have an identifiable mother or father.
* Harmful to Society/nature - may have grave consequences if this ability was to create superior beings.
* May cause disruption in nature, due to possibilities of overpopulation and famine.
* Unnatural - a way of reproduction that is contrary to what God has given humans”

Any kind of changes in the natural process of human beings is said to be disastrous for humans and other living creatures by many religions. The reason for this is that scholars think that God has took control of the natural process of living creatures and that if something is changed, it would be unacceptable to God.

This issue created great uproar in various religious communities when “Dolly” the sheep was born. In 2002, Malaysia banned human cloning saying that it was against Islam. Ismail Ibrahim who is the head of the Muslim clerical council and has the authority issue a decree, or fatwa, said "Human cloning has generated a lot of interest around the world. We do not have problems with cloning of animals or even food, but human beings are a completely different issue…" (Associated press 2002)

Ethical concerns

The human rights organizations and other international organizations are greatly concerned on the development of this new technology. The main reason behind this is that human cloning can lead to many problems in a society. As all technologies can be used either in a good way or a bad way; many people fear that it will be used in a bad way in the future. However, the main ethical concerns are:

     In the future, if human cloning is used, people’s lives might not have much value as humans could be created by cloning.

     The clone’s might become slave of people who created them .Clones have feelings and other needs such as need for affection and love. So, they will be normal human beings which will make it unethical to try to control their lives.

     Clones can get more diseases and it is unethical to make them go through all this trouble

     In the future , clones might act as cheap labor which will be unethical as they will still be humans

     If human cloning takes place, it will be like a Possibility of creating a human repair kit.

     The real question is “It is already happening in nature, why should we do it?”

•   Large percentage of cloning efforts end in failure for example in the case of Dolly, so many sheeps was used to create Dolly which in some way showed there was no value for them. This could happen in the case of humans too
• Clones that do survive often have fatal or problem causing issues in their genes. These can also cause many viruses which may lead to the extinction of human beings.
•      Cloning will create a black market for stolen or discarded embryos
•      Cloning will stop genetic improvements to a species

Legal issues

 The main legal issues concerning human cloning is that if human cloning takes place , people might use them as weapons. “It has been speculated that the cloning of humans could be employed to create an unstoppable "designer army”. This army would be made up of genetically identical, enhanced individuals with great physical strength and artificial immunity to many diseases. The members of this hypothetical army would most likely be capable of enduring extreme physical hardship, and could even be "tailored" to the environment in which they were fighting. For example, an army sent to the tropics would be immune to tropical diseases and would be capable of fighting in extremely hot weather. An army sent to the Arctic Circle would be tolerant of exposure to very cold temperatures for long periods of time.”

"Dolly" the sheep

Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell using Somatic cell nuclear transfer. Scientists working at the Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly in 1996, the only lamb born from 277 attempts; it was a major news story around the world.

The nucleus of an udder cell from a six-year-old Finn Dorset white sheep was used to produce dolly. The nucleus contains nearly all the cell's genes. The scientists than injected the cell into an unfertilized egg cell which had had its nucleus removed, and made the cells fuse by using electrical pulses. The unfertilized egg cell came from a Scottish Blackface ewe. Than an embryo developed which was then cultured for six to seven days before implanting it into a surrogate mother, another Scottish Blackface ewe (Roselin Institute 2011).

Dolly was not introduced to the world until all publications were prepared by the researchers (Roselin Institute 2011). When animal carers in the whole world found about dolly and how it was produced, there was concern all over the world of how this will impact the social and ethical aspect of the world. People all around the world panicked even more when news about dolly’s illness also started.

In autumn 2001, the people got even more concerned about dolly’s health and the problems cloning can cause to beings when dolly was diagnosed with arthritis and lung cancer (Roselin Institute 2011). In 2003, Dolly was put to rest because of these problems it was facing. This caused great concern among many different communities.

Animal cloning

Animal cloning

Animal cloning is the process in which a single cell is taken from the parent organism, i.e. an animal in this case, which helps in reproducing a genetically identical organism. The cloned animal is an exact duplicate of its parent in every way, besides having the same DNA. The first cloned animal was a sheep named “Dolly”

History on Animal Cloning

Attempts to clone animals were made from a very long time. The timeline below shows the history of animal cloning from 1952 to 2001 which will give an overview of what animals were researched on and when was this done.

Fifty years of animal cloning

1952: Cloning by nuclear transfer first demonstrated in animals. Source of nuclei was the very early embryo of the frog Rana pipens.

1956: Animal cloning in toads (Xenopus laevis) achieved by nuclear transfer from tadpoles.

1989-90: Cloning first achieved in mammals (rabbits, sheep, cows) by nuclear transfer from very early embryos.

1995: Cloning first achieved by nuclear transfer from cultured mammalian cell line, resulting in the sheep Megan and Morag.

1997: Cloning first achieved using adult sheep cell, resulting in Dolly.

1997: Cloning first achieved using a transgenic sheep, Polly.

1998-2000: Cloning achieved using adult cells in mice, cows, pigs, goats and monkeys.

2001: Cloning first achieved following gene knockout in sheep. 

Human cloning

Cloning is a process in which an exact copy of a being is made. Cloning can be done on any kind of being that is living like animals and also humans, probably in the future. Cloning has been present from centuries in some way or another for example Plants are cloned from thousands of years for medical purposes.

Cloning is a topic that is considered to be a miracle and also a concern for many at the same time. The reason for this is that this is a new technology that can change the world in many ways. As all technologies, cloning is useful but also has many feared threats to the society.

There are many different types of cloning but the most popular is reproductive cloning. Other types are Somatic cell nuclear transfer and therapeutic cloning.

Even after more than a decade since Dolly, human cloning remains in its early life. Although cloning technology has improved, the process still has a slim success rate of 1 to 4 percent. However, science is headed in that direction -- pending governmental restraints . Cloning humans have not started yet so why is there a hype about this topic? Is there a need for concern even if human cloning hasn’t been introduced? Yes, there is……..