Cloning

When an organism that is an exact genetic copy of another, it is known to be cloned. This means that every single bit of DNA within this organism is exactly the same! There are many different types of cloning, which are possible these days, some of them are:

Molecular cloning Cellular cloning Organism cloning Human cloning

All these cloning procedures involve copying of genes, and making identical organisms, hence there are many uncertainties linked with cloning as it involves coping DNA, which is a blue print of an organism. Moreover, if it is a little bit mutated or any abnormalities happen to it, this could result in huge failure of cloning, and scientist would be unclear as what will be its consequences. Thus, the world is currently going through a lot of debate as to whether it should be legalized or not. The latest technological developments in the field of bio engineering has allowed specialist to proceed with the successful cloning of organisms. Bioengineering has certainly opened doors to science that people have never considered before but this has also come with attached controversy. There are many ethical issues of cloning that are being discussed nowadays and here one can learn more about them. Most of the ethical issues of cloning be it in animals or humans have been raised by the Catholic Church, as well as other religious organizations. They all strongly oppose cloning as according to the religious belief life begins at conception and that life cannot be created artificially but from the unity of a man and female. At the same time, the church together with the other religious organizations argue against therapeutic cloning as well because, as mentioned above, they are guided by the idea that life starts at the conception and once the embryo exists it must be treated as a person, and thus destroying embryos and using them only for the

purpose of research is not consistent with the religious view on the issue. In short, this is a summary of the ethical, social and economical issues of cloning Ethical

It takes too long to get an actual clone, since most tries become failures. Too many birth defects occur to the clones What and how would this new clone learn? The clones have a rapid aging process, since they were taken from an adult cell How would other people treat the clones?

Legal

People wont be able to tell the difference between the real organism and the clone Identification would be very difficult, since the clone has the same genetic information as the host

Social

Would the clone be able to reproduce? It goes against the nature of fertilisation of the sperm and the egg The clone might somehow greatly affect the world The clone would have no parent Would the clone be able to make any friends? What will happen when the clone has a defect? How would the society treat them?

Romon Yang