To clone or not to clone is
the question that mankind has been asking for a very long time now. Cloning
describes the process that can be used to produce genetically identical copies
of a living body. The copied thing, has the same genetic makeup as the original
and is referred to as a clone. When considering to clone something there is a
lot of ethical reasons that prevent people from justifying it’s alright to
clone it. Human cloning is the most talked about when considering if its
ethical. Most people don’t understand what cloning is or means to scientists.
There are three types of cloning, gene, reproductive, and therapeutic cloning.
The possibilities are endless but good things always come with a cost.
I decided to make a video slideshow to inform my target
audience. Instead of me trying to convince someone why or why not to clone I thought
I could make a more convincing argument through video and music. In my video, I
didn’t take any sides when discussing my topic because I didn’t want it to
sound biased at all. I think the music does a good job or keeping the viewer
focused on the information and gives a sense of importance. Throughout this
introduction video to cloning, I discuss different types of cloning, give some
advantages and disadvantages, as well as some comedic relief to help keep the
viewer’s attention. I also decided to
include slides without information, yet still relative to my topic in order to
allow the viewer to process any information they have read in the previous
slides. Each of the slides has a transition effect for a smooth switch between
each of the slides.
A fellow classmate
commented on my cloning research paper saying she “knew little about the topic
and hadn't realized that cloning had different forms and many scientific
benefits”. This is exactly how most people are when it comes to cloning. This
influenced my writing very little because she was telling me something I already
knew from my research and prior knowledge of cloning. In a way it projected me
more towards what I already planned on doing. This comment told me that I needed
to inform people with the different types of cloning and their upsides and
downsides. That’s why I made the
informational introduction video to cloning. My target audience was anyone
interested in cloning as well as the people who stand against it. I believe the
little bit of information I tell them is enough to sway not all but some of the
opinions of cloning whether it be for or against it. As for me, I think we
should continue research in cloning as it could become the very thing that
saves us from the downfall of mankind. Now one might be thinking, well if we
clone more people than we would need more food and we already don’t have enough
of that. That’s not exactly what I think cloning should be used for, I think we
should allow the use of cloning to continue making genetically modified
organisms or animals which we need for food. Cloning could also help with
increasing the lifespan of humans through the use of the medical field and by potentially
making the future human race less susceptible to diseases.
The three types of cloning come with there own advantages
and disadvantages. A fellow student wrote “reproductive cloning is the most
dangerous topic to talk about. On one hand you have the pros that you could
clone a family dog that passed away and on the other it could be used in
cloning human beings”. Reproductive cloning is when you create an exact copy of
a living organism. This type of cloning is frowned upon for ethical reasons. It
takes many attempts to create a healthy clone because most of them don’t take. People
also believe that the clones life is less valuable because there are now two of
the same person, making the copy not unique from everyone. Reproductive cloning
can have some great benefits such as bringing back extinct animals or just
helping endangered ones survive. It also could be used to bring back people
which could be potentially dangerous in the hands of the wrong person. They
could make armies of soldiers from one person. Another type of cloning is gene
cloning. Gene Cloning is used to create segments of genes in DNA. This is used
to eliminate defects in the genetic code of any organism. This could help get
rid of any birth defects that may have been passed on from the parent’s genes. It
could also be used to help create stronger plants and animals that could
survive better or grow in harsh climates. The last type of cloning is therapeutic
cloning which produces embryonic stem cells for experiments aimed at creating
tissues to replace injured or diseased tissues. The possibility to create parts
of the human body such as a heart or liver could help people who need
transplants greatly. Cloning could be used to create a new superior human race,
one capable of higher feats are less prone to dieses and injuries.
Scientist Lee Silver said during an interview with NOVA,
“95 percent of them said they were against human cloning” referring to a survey
he had given. He says people just don’t understand what it means to scientists
when you clone something. They see cloning as a way to replicate a human being
and it soul. People were scared that scientists had gained control over the
human life. This is not how Silver sees human cloning though. To him the only
thing that a clone is is an organism that has the same genetic information as
another organism. He continues to say that people eat clones all the time.
Bananas are all produced by cloning and so are seedless grapes. Cloning happens
all the time just not in the way people think when they hear the word clone. “In 1979, researchers produced the first
genetically identical mice by splitting mouse embryos in the test tube and then
implanting the resulting embryos into the wombs of adult female mice.” In
1996, researchers succeeded in cloning the first mammal from a mature adult
animal. It took 276 attempts but Scottish researchers finally produced Dolly,
the lamb from a cell of a 6-year-old sheep. Since then cattle, cat, deer, dog,
horse, mule, ox, rabbit and rat have all been successfully cloned. There is
also some belief that a human clone named Eve was created back in 1998 but the
company Clonaid didn’t provide any information that could prove if she was. It
was believed Clonaid also cloned 12 other people after Eve but there was still no
information proving this theory. Besides the 13 theoretical human clones, scientists
in South Korea claimed to have successfully cloned a human embryo, but the
experiment was shut down early due to ethical reasons. South Korea proved that
we can clone humans if we eventually get past the ethical boundaries. Another
reason human cloning isn’t happening is because of the difficulty in
successfully cloning a human. The process is much more complicated because our
genetic structure is slightly different from most mammals. A protein known as
the spindle protein is located close to our chromosomes in the eggs and when
removing the nucleus to replace it with another the proteins are removed which
causes the cell to not be able to divide.
As you can see, there are still many
problems with human cloning ethically and technically. While most people
continue to believe that cloning is wrong and immoral, scientists continue
trying to find better ways to successfully clone humans and other mammals that
may have become extinct. Human cloning has a place in our future and I don’t
see it going anywhere anytime soon. It holds the solutions to many of our
current problems such as cancers and organ failures. It could potentially be
used to replace lost limbs of soldiers and people who were born with defects.
Cloning is becoming a part of the future reproduction of humans and animals
whether people want it to be or not.
Citations
"Cloning - Google Search." Cloning - Google Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.
Jessa Pamonag, Owner at DUP (Dota University of Philippines) Follow.
"Cloning." Share and Discover Knowledge on LinkedIn SlideShare. N.p., 11 July 2013. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.
"Cloning
Fact Sheet." National
Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). NIH, May 2016. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.
By Veronique
Greenwood. "Genetically Engineering Babies With Less Disease-and 3
Parents-Seems Safe - 80beats." 80beats.
N.p., 21 Apr. 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.
"Human
CLoning." PBS. PBS,
2001. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.
