Saturday 17 March 2012

Ethics of Cloning

Based on the story of the goat that was successfully cloned called Noori (referred to in 'News Round Up'), I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the ethical side of cloning humans.

Cloning is a very touchy subject in science because there are lots of opinions but very little has actually been carried out. We have no idea of the effects of cloning on humans (reproductive cloning), because it has never been performed, and laws are very strict on the matter, with the UN, EU, Australia and the US all prohibiting the cloning of human embryos and some even prohibiting therapeutic cloning (using cells from adults) where the "embryo would be allowed to grow for perhaps 14 days. It's stem cells would then be extracted and encouraged to grow into a piece of human tissue or a complete human organ for transplant" (http://www.religioustolerance.org/clo_ther.htm).

There are a number of opinions from religious and non-religious people that on cloning with some thinking it would be beneficial and others thinking that the risks/arguments against are too great.

Beneficial/Arguments For;
1. Research into cloning could lead to new scientific developments that could greatly aid our understanding such as developing new technologies. Therapeutic cloning has already helped us towards understanding the uses of stem cells and how useful they could be to us, so who knows how reproductive cloning could help us.
2. There are theories that it could be harmful to the clone but until it is proven then this can only be assumed as a precaution for not carrying out reproductive cloning. Of course it has to be taken into consideration because of the ethics to do with allowing the clone to go through excessive pain.
3. One of the biggest benefits that reproductive cloning could provide is in "the manipulation of genes, embryos can be created free of inherited genetic disorders or predispositions" (http://tinyurl.com/3499l6h). This could provide a pathway to eradicating inherited diseases such as Huntington's disorder.

Risks/Arguments Against;
1. The theory of cloning being harmful could prove true and it could lead to a child with deformities or internal abnormalities and could cause the clone great pain and in the worst case scenario may have to be sacrificed. There are safety concerns with all forms of new medical techniques and this would be no different for cloning. Rigorous testing of equipment and procedure would have to be analysed. 
2. This leads to a religious argument that is quite often used in the cloning debate which is; by cloning humans, scientists are 'playing God' because they are doing the job of God by creating a new human being.
3. Psychological damage to the child may occur in the child because of the media attention that would undoubtedly be drawn to the first cloned human being but this could be avoided slightly by using Privacy Laws and government protection.
4. Another religious argument is that 'life begins at conception' which would be at the point when the embryo cells are cloned to produce the cloned cells. If the cells were then discarded or 'killed' then some may oppose and say that a 'new life has been destroyed' (as they do in IVF). Although this argument can be avoided as sometimes a time period of 14 days is specified and that after those 14 days the cells are a new human being.
5. "Adaptation in genes allows human beings to strengthen themselves against diseases and the environment. Cloning would limit this ability severely. Copying something generally weakens it, and scientists have found this true of cloning. All cloned animals have died early of diseases or genetic issues" (http://tinyurl.com/3499l6h) which is an argument in its own right.

It is clear from the small amount of ethical factors that I have discussed and taken into account that I am only scraping the surface of the arguments. In my opinion I think that there are a lot of things that could go wrong, as has happened in the cloning of animals, and illustrated by number five of the 'risks'. Although I do not believe in the 'life begins at conception' argument I would say that it would not be at all ethical if we got to the stage where a clone was produced for it to die prematurely. If scientists could either illustrate this issue or maybe develop the technique of cloning animals to a point where they are confident it could be successfully replicated in humans. What are your thoughts?

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