Morals of Cloning

Imagine the world as only beautiful people. Everywhere you look is a Cindy Crawford

look-a-like: 5'9", brown hair, brown eyes, and the perfect smile. A "Master Race." Do we really

want to reenact Adolf Hitler's plan of seeking world domination killing million upon millions as

a "final solution?" Instead of killing, we'd be reproducing millions, going against nature. Say

we went and got one of Princess Diana's cells and implanted that in an egg that was then placed

into a surrogate mother. Nine months later, we would have a baby Princess Diana. Only trouble

is, this baby would only resemble Princess Diana in looks, not personality, character, or

individuality. Her whole life wouldn't be what it had been; she wouldn't be "her." What if your

newborn son died? Just think; you could have a second chance. Is this morally or ethnically

right? Cloning of humans should be forbidden, but cloning of human body parts for medicinal

purposes should be allowed.

Cloning hasn't been a big issue or ever thought to have actually been made to work until

1997 with the successful birth of a lamb named Dolly. Out of 277 eggs implanted in different

sheep mothers, Dolly was the only lamb successfully born. The method used to clone Dolly was

scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland took a cell out of the mammary gland. They then

used an electrical pulse to coax an adult cell into merging with a host egg whose nucleus had

been removed . This method being very unsuccessful brought on a new one where scientists

used mice, injecting just the adult nucleus into a nucleus free host instead of using an electrical

pulse. They also had let it set for two hours before stimulating it to start dividing. The success

rate was 2-3 in 100. Now knowing that we could clone sheep and mice, scientists were up to the

possibility and challenge of cloning humans. As soon as it became public knowledge that

cloning was really happening and becoming more successful, the USA imposed a ban on federal

funding for human-cloning research. Several states have established restrictions, some even

banning cloning completely.

Cloning is not morally or ethnically right. Morally, scientists would be taking the role of

God. If a clone dies, where would they go? In religious beliefs, clones would have no souls

because God didn't create them. Cloning would alter the definition of ourselves. To clone a

dead person with their DNA would only make another person that would look exactly the same

minus their personality, character, talents, memories, scars, and life. Can you imagine raising a

cloned child? As they grew up it wouldn't be the same. They would be thought of as a "special

child", that is if they were even born correctly. The odds of even having a human clone born

with out defects are very, very slim. The child would go through grade school probably all right

until it come time for family life. It comes home and it is now your time to explain the "birds

and bees" speech. Are you going to explain that he/she is different than all other kids and is a big

scientific study or are you going to lie? Either way, you're going to have to live with the

consequences. Dolly was cloned from a sheep cell that was about six years old, a middle age for

a sheep. So this means that when Dolly was born she was technically six years old. This would

mean that she would only be expected to live for five years, which would in truth be shorter than

the normal lifespan of eleven years. If this was true, and humans were cloned, their lifespan

would be shorter also. This was proved wrong, but if Dolly was born being six years old, she'd

be about ten years old right now, and old age. Does this mean that she is only going to live two

more years or nine more? Life isn't a toy it's a very serious thing. You were brought on to this

planet for a reason and cloning doesn't seem to be a good enough one.

Cloning would deplete genetic diversity. It is diversity that drives evolution and

adaptation. Each person is born with a mixture of chromosomes from a mother and father

sexually with the egg and fertilization from sperm. The new cell is called a zygote, which then

multiplies, creating new cells all with that same DNA. Cloning would be creating a person

non-sexually. The baby would only possess the DNA of one person. As you look around, do

you see everyone looking exactly the same? No, and this is variety, except for the few

exceptions where about 1/1000 births are identical twins. "Identical