Genetic Cloniing

Michelle Toten

Per . 6

GENETIC CLONING SPEECH

It was one of the biggest scientific discoveries, and scientists everywhere became interested in it. Genetic cloning. About a year ago a scientific team cloned the first embryo of a sheep. Producing the cloned sheep Dolly. Dolly astonished many scientists and brought new ideas to them. American scientist Richard Seed tells NPR's "All things considered" that he and his colleagues are set to begin work on human cloning within the next few years.

Cloning humans would be a big step in the scientific world. Having the knowledge and power to clone humans brought many concerns to the public. Iam sure everyone has thought about what it would be like if we can clone our selfs. The movie Multiplicity shows a guy cloning himself many times just so he can get a little help around his house. The movie shows the guy going into a machine and having a carbon copy of himself being made. But cloning is not as easy as just stepping into a machine it takes a lot of work and techincal advances. First of all you can not expect to clone yourself and have it be the same age as you are. You have to start off as an embryo meaning that in a way you would be the parents of the clone. Just the same they will start off as babies and grow into adults. So if someone wanted a clone of themselves

it would not be like them having an identical twin but more like an identical child.

Human cloning has brought many concerns to people about what type of people would be allowed to be cloned. For instance in the movie "The boys of Brazil" a scientist re-created a bunch of hitlers . Having a bunch of hitlers may not be the best thing, but the chances of that ever happening is not possible. Bill Stosine of Time Magazine comments that "all this talk about re-creating a hiltler or Einstien is never going to happen." While genetic characteristcs such as height, hair and eye color, and sexual orientation may mirror the original, the thoughts and ideas of a clone will not.

They are unique to each person. Brian House of Denver says " while cloning is defenitly a big deal scientifically, it should not be a big deal ethically. Nature clones us- look at identical twins."

So what exactly are the benefits of cloning? Having this knowledge, genetic cloning could be used to develop

new medicines for humans and animals as well as used as baises to breed stock and plants resistant to most diseases. Industries could also use this technoloy to improve techniques. I believe that banning cloning would stop important research that could be vital in many future medical fields. The cloning technology is advanced enough that sceintists could obtain healthy cells from a person with leukmia, a burn victim or even someone with cancer, who needs a transplant and they can clone the healthy cells. Having this done there would be no reason for rejection of the transplant and the patient would not have to go through painfull treatment. Cloning can also help infertil woman become pregnant. By having cloned embryos implanted. Just think of it, people like the ones i mentioned