Cloning Essay, Research Paper
Automatically when people talk about human cloning that tend to be negative. Most reaction is people shouldn’t play god or interfere with nature. Of course there are negative consequences that could come from cloning. On the other hand there is so many positive things that could save more lives than it would cost. Yes Cloning involves risky techniques that could result in premature babies and some deaths. That is why public policy needs to be changed on cloning. The medical possibilities are endless if federal money is given to research and develop cloning techniques.
President Clinton signed an order banning federal money to be used on research of cloning and embryo science. By not giving money to develop cloning techniques, this leaves cloning to be research by private citizens and private companies. If public policy was changed concerning human cloning and federal money was given to establish national research centers and a commission to regulate cloning then black market of cloning would be seriously decreased. There is a current debate over whether or not the Food and Drug admission has any jurisdiction over cloning research. The argument is that the F.D.A. does not have the power to regulate medical practices. They only have the power to regulate legal drugs. As it stands now there is no type of regulation on human cloning research.
In 2000 congress tried to establish anti-cloning laws, but got bogged down in the ethical issues in reproductive freedom. The FDA has no jurisdiction to regulate cloning research, for most cases medical practices are typically regulated at the state levels. Cloning is legal in 47 out of the 50 states and 175 out of 200 countries. The three states that it is illegal are California, Rhode Island, and Michigan. The Californian law states that a person could be fined up to $250,000 for cloning a child and the business could be fined up to a million. This law has a five-year sunset clause, which means it automatically expires after five years. The Rhode Island law is similar to the Californian law it to has a five-year sunset clause. Michigan has a more radical law, for cloning of a child, or the creation of a cloned embryo, research on cloning carries a penalty up to ten years. It doesn’t matter, the law applies to any type of research using cloning techniques whether it is to cure diseases or to impregnate an infertile woman or to help an infertile patient.
In a recent poll conduct by Time magazine and CNN ninety percent thought that cloning a human was a bad idea. Most people have a bad outlook on cloning because they do not know the whole truth about cloning. Most people have false ideas about cloning. The rumor that it took 277 tries to impregnate Dolly, the cloned sheep, is false. The scientist started with 277 embryos and only 29 developed into fertilized eggs. Out of those twenty-nine eggs, Dolly was the only sheep that survived until birth. There were not any dead lambs born, the pregnancy was cared all the way though.
Before people judge cloning they need to have an idea of what they are talking about. There are three basic ways to clone a human, the splitting of a cell from an embryo (twinning), the Roslin technique used to create Dolly, and the Honolulu technique. The Twinning technique is done when an embryo is fertilized by a sperm cell. After it is fertilized, the cell starts dividing into an Eight-cell embryo. Then each one of those cells came be taken and implant into the uteri of eight separate mothers, which in turn creates eight clones.
The second way is the Roslin technique. This how that dolly was created. You take an egg and take out the nucleus. Then you discard that nucleus. By doing this you have remove almost all of the eggs DNA and genes. Then you insert the nucleus of the mammal you are trying to clone into the old cell. You do this by either fusing an adult cell with an enucleated egg or by the more complicated nuclear transfer. Then the reconstructed egg is stimulated electrically or chemically to trick it into behaving like a fertilized egg. Then it divides and becomes an embryo and finally then transferred into the uterus of a mother.
A team of scientist at the University of Hawaii developed Honolulu technique. This technique is typically the same as the Roslin method, but it has a much higher success rate. It uses three types of cells, Sertoli cells, brain cells, and cumulus cells instead of a single udder cell as in the Roslin method. The significance of using three different types of cells is that they stay in the G0 and G1 state longer. This is the state before the cell starts to divide. Because it stays in the G0 and G1 state longer it allows more time to implant the new nucleus before the division process starts. This gives you more time to fuse the nucleus into the new reconstructive cell. After the nucleus is in the reconstructed cell it is implanted and carried to term by the mother in the same manner as the Roslin technique.
Because people are uneducated or scared of cloning and its techniques, so they are less likely to tolerate research on these methods. If federal money is given to aid the research then these techniques can be perfected and the success rate will drastically improve. By using federal money the government can have some control over cloning and its future. Since no federal money has been given to research cloning then they have no rights to regulate or stop human cloning because of reproductive freedom allowed by our constitution.
The issue of reproductive freedom has been a long debated moral issue in the Supreme Court. It was mostly debated over abortions, but also can be carried over into the reproductive rights of infertile parents. Most cloning activists use reproductive freedom to argue for human cloning rights. In the interpretation of reproductive freedom the government does not have the right to interfere in matter so sacred as baring a child. Do infertile parents not have the same right of having a natural child do healthy parents? There are many more benefits, besides those of infertile parents, which could come from cloning.
Imagine you had a loved one who desperately needed a bone marrow transplant. No donor could be found and the only hope is to clone his or her own bone marrow. Does that justify cloning and the funding of its research and development? Not only bone marrow could be cloned, but also other organs could be cloned in the future if research is further funded. The good thing about cloning your own organs is that there would be no rejection drugs needed because it would be your natural organ. As it stands now we do not have the technology to clone organs, but with further funding provided through federal money this technology could be in our near future.
Some scientists believe that cloning cells is the answer to many medical problems such as cancer, Alzheimer disease, and many other cell diteeriating diseases. There are so many medical areas that could be helped through this technology it is imperative that we appropriate research time and money. If the United States and its people want to be closed minded on cloning issues then we will be far behind in medical technology. We will miss out on a large market in the medical field if we do not take action now. As it stands now many scientists predict that there will be a cloned human inside the next year. Recently at a four-hour conference in Rome a international team of scientists promised that they would produce a cloned human within the next year. They declared that nothing could stop the creation of human being by the methods that they have discovered. They claim that the clones would be unique individual not photocopies of individuals. Many people were objecting to their proposition because they said that it would lead to a disastrous and monster like creations and premature deaths. Severino Antinori, an Italian gynecologist argued that fact with his fellow scientists and stated, “Cloning creates ordinary children.” He is very well known activist for human cloning.
In January it was announced that ten infertile couples wanted to participate in the cloning project. Since then many other couples have some forth and said they would also like to participate in this experiment. Those couples fully agree with the cloning of humans, they think that it would be a miracle to be able to have children. American researchers have found over 600 to 700 couples with fertile problems that would take part in human cloning. They have ruled out single women and couples who want to have another child to take place of another child’s death.
As it stands now a person derived from human cloning is an inevitable fact of life. If the United States doesn’t change it’s public policy on human cloning, then we will not be on the cutting edge medical technology.
The National Bioethics Advisory Commission admits that the vision of cloning portrayed by polar fiction is “based on gross misunderstands of human biology and psychology. In fact most people believe that a clone will be an exact copy but in fact it will a completely different person. A human and its clone would be physically the same but they would have different personalities and IQs. Most people do not realize that Identical twins are natural clones. People are afraid of new things and often condemn them before the idea is really contemplated. People always want to think the worst. For example that cloning could be used to bring back Adolph Hitler. This idea was perceived from the movie, “The Boys from Brazil.” These ideas are far fetch and misunderstood.
Human Cloning is inevitable. The United States cannot stop cloning research and development, so they must have some type of control over. If they ignore the problem and do not deal with human cloning it only is going to lead to bigger problems in the future. Federal money needs to be spent on establish national research centers and a commission to deal with certain cloning issues on an individual basis. Cloning does not need to be banned completely. Well the first question is, “Where would this money come from to fund this technology?” The answer is from government bonds. That could be paid back when cloning is further research and cloning becomes an optional procedure. Then the medical tasks that cloning could aid would certainly produce enough money to repay the bonds and justify the use of federal money.
President Bush needs to lift the band imposed by former President Clinton. When this is done then the next steps can be taken to fund the research and development of cloning in the United States. Only then came Americans truly benefit from cloning and medical revolution that this technology will bring.