Cloning Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, took the world by storm. Since her birth in 1997, the potential benefits and potential pitfalls have been debated by scientists, doctors, and bioethicists, with few clear breakthroughs. Most governments in Europe, Asia and North America have banned or significantly restricted research into human cloning. Animal cloning is also falling out of favor, as the exercise is expensive and as of yet, relatively unsuccessful. Cloning has put the religious communities into a tizzy as well, for cloning raises some complicated and troubling questions about the nature of life and the powers inherent in creating it. However, the science of cloning is still in its infancy. Plants have been cloned for thousands of years, but human and animal cloning could yield to great medical advancements and breakthroughs. Human cloning could serve as a healthy alternative to fertility drugs, and could lead to the development of viable tissues that can be used to repair abnormal or sickened parts of the body. Even animal cloning has the potential to assist medical technology by creating organs and tissues that can be used for health and healing. Nevertheless, there is something about the concept of cloning that makes people shudder. Perhaps Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is partly to blame for some of the negative connotations and fears surrounding cloning. Opponents of cloning claim ethical conundrums: cloned human beings might be treated as inferior to naturally born ones, and might also be born with defects or painful abnormalities. Cloning also...
Cloning failures are in fact one of the main reasons why more research should be done into perfecting the procedure. The potentially positive benefits of cloning for medical research outweigh the risks, which are mainly based on fear.Scientific research and specifically cloning is protected as a first amendment right, coupled with the benefits available with this technology, and the unimaginable benefits that can be reaped in the future, cloning is the hope of the future, despite the worries of critics. References After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning." The Futurist 40(4) Jul-Aug 2006: p. 62. InfoTrac database. Thomson-Gale. University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ. July 5, 2006
Cloning In 1997, when the world first heard about Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult, the possibility of cloning a human moved from science fiction into the realm of reality. Now Congress is taking up the question of whether human cloning should be allowed. There are many pros and cons to this issue, but the benefits certainly outweigh the concerns regarding people's feelings against cloning. It
For example, the most common instrument used in cloning today is known as a "micromanipulator," described by Baird as being an expensive machine that requires the use of a skilled technician to capture an egg cell under the microscope, insert a very fine needle to suck out its nucleus, and then use another needle to transfer a nucleus from the animal to be cloned. "This process is tricky and
cloning creating controversy among scientists, politicians, and intellectuals: reproductive (cloning to produce live humans) and theraputic (cloning to treat illness) (Kass). Reproductive cloning invloves creating an embryo and transferring it into a woman's womb, where it goes through normal pregnancy and is birthed (Kass). Theraputic cloning invloves growing an embryo until stem cells can be extracted (about a week), extracting the cells, and destroying the embryo afterward (Kass). I
Cloning Bioethics, which is the study of value judgments pertaining to human conduct in the area of biology and includes those related to the practice of medicine, has been an important aspect of all areas in the scientific field (Bernstein, Maurice, M.D.). It is one of the factors that says whether or not certain scientific research can go on, and if it can, under which rules and regulations it must abide
"Animals that are experiencing dwindling numbers could be cloned to prevent their extinction. Taiwanese scientists claimed to have made five clones of an endangered pig to save this species" (Anonymous). While some say man should not play God there are others like Edmund Erde who disagree and say that "playing God" is a phrase that is "muddle-headed" and "nonsensical" and should be deserted (Edmund Erde, p.594). For those who
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