Cloning

With the technological knowledge in the world growing from day to day, there is no way to predict where science may lead us in the future. Just a few years ago, cloning was something of a fictional nature that most scientists had thought about, but never seriously considered it as an experiment. Recently, animals have been cloned, and cloning has become no less than true reality. In a few more years, the knowledge on how to clone humans could be present. Before that advancement arrives, we need to ask ourselves if this knowledge of cloning is a beneficial idea or a destructive one. Cloning will have negative effects on our society in the future because: cloning devalues uniqueness of the individual cloned, clones could be used in crimes or used as weapons, cloned animals that are reintroduced into the ecosystem could cause the ecosystem to change drastically, people who try to clone their dead loved ones will be shocked to find that the clone may resemble the person that they love, but it really isn't the person that they love, finally, animals that are cloned for medical reasons don't deserve to be brought into this world just to be used only for their organs and other body parts. If something isn't done to avoid cloning humans before it is too late, then cloning could upset the balance of our society drastically, possibly causing irreversible mishap in the world as we know it today.

The knowledge on how to clone humans doesn't exist yet, but the knowledge on how to clone animals is presently being utilized in research labs worldwide. Standard cloning involves taking DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) from a cell of a particular species and transferring it into an egg cell from another animal belonging to the same species or another one. Before this process can take place, the nucleus from the original cell must be removed from that egg. The result is then implanted into the surrogate mother. This mother will then provide the food and nutrients for the embryo to develop until the mother gives birth to the clone. Until recently, the surrogate mother had to be of the same species, but now, with recent technological advances, one species can now give birth to a different species ("Science and Technology" 100).

The laundry list of complaints about cloning begins with the fact that cloning humans decreases the value of uniqueness of the individual. According to ABC News, "About 87 percent oppose cloning humans, and 93 percent don't want to be cloned themselves" (Rembert 15). With statistics that strong, it proves that the extent to the public's opposition to the cloning of humans. The Vatican has always been known to be truthful to what they say. The church has a great deal of influence on many people's opinions, and the church believes that human cloning is also immoral because it violates the human dignity of the individual ("Vatican"). How would you feel if you found out that you were a clone? You probably wouldn't feel like a person that was truly meant to step foot on this earth. You would probably feel like a nobody, someone's creation. John Colvin, a writer for The Humanist magazine, says that if cloning is used frequently in our society, "...human biodiversity will be diminished and human evolution will cease" (Colvin 39). People will start to look and act more like each other, and if one person's genes contains vital information for the future and he/she doesn't reproduce sexually, it would be shared with another individual and evolution of the human race will never take place again. Fr. Frank Pavone, a well-respected writer for the church, feels that clones would also feel less of human beings because "value is intimately tied to uniqueness" (Pavone). If people were being cloned one after the other, then there wouldn't be much diversity in the society. This will also diminish the value of uniqueness.

Some other possibilities of cloning that can also upset our economy include such unlawful behavior as using cloning for crime or as a weapon. In an article released last year on cloning by Pamela Schaeffer, who is a writer for the National Catholic Reporter, Schaeffer says that all it takes is for one cell to start the cloning process and that cell can be taken without the donor even knowing about it (Schaeffer 21). If a person was to obtain someone else's cells, then it would be possible for that person to clone those cells and create an individual that looks exactly like the person that the cells were taken from. The person that cloned the cells could force their newly developed clone to commit any type of crime possible. This is an example of a case of fraud or framing. Since the clone committed the crime, and is an exact replica of the person that was cloned, it would be extremely difficult and almost impossible to prove the framed person innocent by claiming that it was a clone, and not the person that was cloned. Dr. Patrick Dixon, who is a doctor opposed to cloning, and has written several articles on the effects of cloning, states "there are powerful leaders in every generation who will seek to abuse this technology for their own purposes" (Dixon). A tyrannical leader of a country could clone an army of his/her elite soldiers to create a super-army of human clones to be used for domination and war. Nobody knows the number of criminals in the world right now, just waiting for the science field to announce the development of human cloning. With so many individuals who are possible abusers of cloning, and with so many ways to abuse the technology, nobody knows how many negative directions that cloning could take us. It may soon be possible to clone Adolf Hitler or any other oppressive figure from our past. The only thing that would be needed is a cell, perhaps even some of his bone marrow from his skeleton. Other individuals, such as John Colvin believe that a person could also clone a subclass of slaves (Colvin 39). With the ability to clone people, there is nothing to stop the production of slaves. The slaves may be used to do labor for the crimes for their owner. Slavery is illegal and when the time comes that humans can be cloned, there will be nothing to stop people from cloning slaves and abusing the technology in many other ways.

Also, people have had the idea of cloning extinct species to bring them back from the dead and once again into the environment. Nichole Myers, a biologist for WIL Research, studies cloning daily and the effects that it will have in the future, believes that cloning of endangered or extinct animals is a dreadful idea. If a species is reintroduced into a habitat that it isn't adapted for them, then it could throw off the entire ecosystem and cause another species to die out due to competition, or the reintroduced species could prey on another species causing them to die out