My Point of View on Cloning

My Point of View on Cloning

While cloning animal attempts have been successful to a certain point, human clones raises a lot more concerns on respecting these clones, the health, insurance coverage, etc.

On another note, why do human want clones? Some people want to bring back their dead relatives, some people, as "The Island" suggested, would like a clone to act as their healthy backup. But even though clones may physically look alike, the risk of brain damage is high, not to mention the personalities may be very different.

Bringing back the dead reminds me of a recent article published in Popular Science. Geneticists are making resurrecting extinct animals attempts. The magazine article explains the process of how to clone an extinct animal: obtain DNA sample, rebuild genome, swap DNA with related species, jolt the eggs, then implant embryos. However, several problems were mentioned in the text: First, scientists face the challenge of figuring out which genes would be truest to the original beast. Second, "even if geneticists successfully reconstruct the Tasmanian tiger genome, they might not produce a living clone [because] 90 percent of all cloning attempts using healthy DNA fail."1 Third, Clones that do make it out of the womb are often a sickly lot, wrought with disease, poor immune systems and genetic abnormalities. Forth, the animals' original habitat.

After all, is it really worth the risk to clone humans? Human death does not seem that easy to overcome, and thus we need to realize how big of a health, ethical, and monetary risk the society will be taking with clones walking among non-clones. Experiences of working in the pharmacy gave me a taste of how crucial insurance coverage is, and how little some companies are willing to pay... I highly doubt clones, suggested medically to be more ill than non-clones, will receive a better insurance plan.

I personally do not oppose stem cell research. If we could reach a point recreating healthy human organs, transport them with low risk into patience that have (a) malfunctioning organ(s) it would be good. But recreating a whole life, a person with his or her own thoughts, with an unhealthy whole life ahead would not be the best for the clone himself/herself