Why reproductive cloning

Throughout history, parents who have lost children have grieved and sought consolation from family and community. Rights are socially negotiated, and no "right" to clone oneself has ever been established.

Furthermore, there is an immense difference between a woman's desire to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and the desire to create a genetic duplicate of another person.

There is no inconsistency between supporting the former and opposing the latter. Most advocates of human cloning also advocate the genetic modification of the human species. Human cloning is a blunt form of eugenics-it "copies" an existing genome-while inheritable genetic modification allows the creation of "designer babies" through manipulation of individual genes.

But cloning technologies are needed if inheritable genetic modification is to become commercially practicable. This is the deeper and more far-reaching motivation behind much of the advocacy of human cloning.

The Center for Genetics and Society believes that when all the arguments are considered together the case for allowing human cloning is not compelling, and that the harms of doing so are great. These labs were deciphering the secrets of embryos and had a particular interest in how eggs are formed. Surgeons in New York have successfully attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a human patient and found that the organ worked normally, a scientific breakthrough that one day may yield a vast new supply of organs When desperate parents are looking for medical treatment for their kids, especially their autistic kids, they often do two things: They look up information about a program at Duke University, and then, in short order, they go to GoFundMe.

Main navigation. Search Search Donate Subscribe. Reproductive Cloning Arguments Pro and Con. Arguments Against Reproductive Cloning 1. Rebuttals to Arguments Against Reproductive Cloning 1 and 2. Human society can accept or reject any proposed technology on its own merits.

Arguments in Favor of Reproductive Cloning 1. Rebuttals to Arguments in Favor of Reproductive Cloning 1. Strong has argued that these concerns are based on a fallacious inference. But suppose some people create a clone for instrumental reasons, for example, as a stem cell donor for a sick sibling. Does this imply that the clone will be treated merely as a means?

Critics of this argument have pointed out that parents have children for all kinds of instrumental reasons, including the benefit for the husband-wife relationship, continuity of the family name, and the economic and psychological benefits children provide when their parents become old Harris , 41—2, Pence This is generally not considered problematic as long as the child is also valued in its own right. What is most important in a parent-child relationship is the love and care inherent in that relationship.

They stress the fact that we judge people on their attitudes toward children, rather than on their motives for having them. Another concern is that clones may be the victims of unjustified discrimination and will not be respected as persons Deech ; Levick , — Savulescu and others have argued that, if it is, then we must conclude that racist attitudes and discriminatory behavior towards people with a certain ethnicity provides a good reason for people with that ethnicity not to procreate.

This, according to these critics, is a morally objectionable way to solve the problem of racism. Likewise, it is argued, instead of prohibiting cloning out of concern for clonism, we should combat possible prejudices and discrimination against clones see also Pence , 46; Harris , 92— Macintosh , —21 has warned that by expressing certain concerns about cloning one may actually reinforce certain prejudices and misguided stereotypes about clones.

For example, saying that a clone would not have a personal identity prejudges the clone as inferior or fraudulent the idea that originals are more valuable than their copies or even less than human as individuality is seen as an essential characteristic of human nature. Another concern is that cloning threatens traditional family structures; a fear that has come up in debates about homosexuals adopting children, IVF and other assisted reproduction techniques. Some have argued against these concerns, replying that a cloned child would not necessarily be more confused about her family ties than other children.

Many have four nurturing parents because of a divorce, never knew their genetic parents, have nurturing parents that are not their genetic parents, or think that their nurturing father is also their genetic father when in fact he is not. While these complex family relationships can be troubling for some children, they are not insurmountable, critics say. Harris , 77—78 argues that there are many aspects about the situation one is born and raised in that may be troublesome.

As with all children, the most important thing is the relation with people who nurture and educate them, and children usually know very well who these people are. There is no reason to believe that with cloning, this will be any different. While she acknowledges that there are already children now with confused family relationships, she argues that it is very different when prospective parents seek such potentially confused relationships for their children from the start.

Other concerns related to cloning focus on the potential harmful effects of cloning for others. Sometimes these concerns are related to those about the wellbeing of the clone. However, since I have already mentioned this concern, I will, in the remainder of this entry, focus on other arguments. The strongest reason for why reproductive cloning should be permissible, if safe, is that it will allow infertile people to have a genetically related child.

This position relies on the view that having genetically related children is morally significant and valuable. This is a controversial view. For example, Levy and Lotz and Rulli have denied the importance of a genetic link between parents and their children. Levick , and Ahlberg and Brighouse have also advanced this view. Since, according to these authors, these undesirable consequences would be magnified if we allowed human cloning, we have good reason to prohibit it.

In response, Strong has argued that this effect is uncertain, and that there are other, probably more effective, ways to help such children or to prevent them from ending up in such a situation.

Moreover, if cloning is banned, infertile couples may make use of donor embryos or gametes rather than adoption. Another concern is that because cloning is an asexual way of reproducing it would decrease genetic variation among offspring and, in the long run, might even constitute a threat to the human race.

In response, it has been argued that if cloning becomes possible, the number of people who will choose it as their mode of reproduction will very likely be too low to constitute a threat to genetic diversity. It would be unlikely to be higher than the rate of natural twinning, which, occurring at a rate of 3.

Further, even if millions of people would create children through cloning, the same genomes will not be cloned over and over: each person would have a genetic copy of his or her genome, which means the result will still be a high diversity of genomes. Others argue that, even if genetic diversity were not diminished by cloning, a society that supports reproductive cloning might be taken to express the view that variety is not important. Conveying such a message, these authors say, could have harmful consequences for a multicultural society.

Some see the increase in control of what kind of genome we want to pass on to our children as a positive development. One version of this concern states that cloning would, from the outset, constitute a problematic form of eugenics. However, critics have argued that this is implausible: the best explanations of what was wrong with immoral cases of eugenics, such as the Nazi eugenic programs, are that they involved coercion and were motivated by objectionable moral beliefs or false non-moral beliefs.

This would not necessarily be the case were cloning to be implemented now Agar ; Buchanan Another version of the eugenics concern points out the risk of a slippery slope: the claim is that cloning will lead to objectionable forms of eugenics—for example, coercive eugenics—in the future. After all, historical cases of immoral eugenics often developed from earlier well intentioned and less problematic practices for a history of eugenics as well as an analysis of philosophical and political issues raised by eugenics, see Kevles and Paul According to Sandel , Ch.

This argument has also been advanced in the debate about selective abortion, prenatal testing, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Disagreement exists about whether these effects are likely. For example, Buchanan et al. Critics have pointed out that the reference to human dignity is problematic as it is rarely specified how human dignity is to be understood, whose dignity is at stake, and how dignity is relevant to the ethics of cloning Harris , Ch. Some commentators state that it is the copying of a genome which violates human dignity Kass ; others have pointed out that this interpretation could be experienced as an offence to genetically identical twins, and that we typically do not regard twins as a threat to human dignity although some societies in the past did , nor do we prevent twins from coming into existence.

I have, however, already discussed this concern in section 4. No unified religious perspective on human cloning exists; indeed, there are a diversity of opinions within each individual religious tradition. For an overview of the evaluation of cloning by the main religious groups see, for example, Cole-Turner and Walters For a specifically Jewish perspective on cloning, see, for example, Lipschutz , for an Islamic perspective, Sadeghi and for a Catholic perspective, Doerflinger What is Cloning?

Cloning for Research and Therapy 2. Human Reproductive Cloning 3. Cloning for Research and Therapy Cloning for research and therapy involves the creation of an embryo via SCNT, but instead of transferring the cloned embryo to the uterus in order to generate a pregnancy, it is used to obtain pluripotent stem cells.

Human Reproductive Cloning The central argument in favor of reproductive cloning is expansion of opportunities for reproduction. However, since I have already mentioned this concern, I will, in the remainder of this entry, focus on other arguments 3.

Religious perspectives No unified religious perspective on human cloning exists; indeed, there are a diversity of opinions within each individual religious tradition. Bibliography Agar, N. Ahlberg, J. Alpers, A. Annas, G. Humber and R. Almeder eds. Asch, A. Wasserman, R. Wachbroit, and J. Bickenbach eds. Baylis, F. Birnbacher, D. Boland, M. Brock, D. Nussbaum and C. Sunstein eds. Brown, M.

Buchanan, A. Cervera, R. Cole-Turner, R. Deckers, J. Deech, R. Burley ed. Devolder, K. Dickinson, D. Doerflinger, R. Douglas, T. Feinberg, J. Aiken ed. FitzPatrick, W. Fletcher, J. French, A. George, K. Gruen, L. Hansen, J. Harris, J. Holm, S. Jonas, H. Kalfoglou, A. Kass, L. Kevles, D. Kiessling, A. Kitcher, P. Levick, S. Levy, N. Lipschutz, J. Ma, H. Macintosh, K.

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If that doesn't help, please let us know. Unable to load video. Please check your Internet connection and reload this page. If the problem continues, please let us know and we'll try to help. An unexpected error occurred. Previous Video Dolly- the sheep, produced in was the first clone of an adult animal, but several other species have been cloned since, including dogs and cats.

The most common method of cloning adult animals is somatic cell nuclear transfer. First the nucleus is removed from an egg's cell, then a somatic cell such as a skin cell is taken from the animal to be cloned. The nucleus containing chromosomal DNA is removed and injected into the egg.

The egg is stimulated to divide by chemical or electrical treatment, and forms an embryo, which is implanted into the uterus of an adult female, where it continues to develop until birth.

The resulting clone has identical chromosomal DNA to the original animal, but the mitochondrial DNA is often different since the mitochondria come from the cytoplasm of the egg, usually from a different individual.

Also phenotypic differences between the clone and the original can occur due to environmental and epigenetic factors during development. Just as identical twins are slightly different from each other, despite having the same DNA. Reproductive cloning is the process of producing a genetically identical copy—a clone—of an entire organism. While clones can be produced by splitting an early embryo—similar to what happens naturally with identical twins—cloning of adult animals is usually done by a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer SCNT.

In SCNT, an egg cell is taken from an animal and its nucleus is removed, creating an enucleated egg. Then a somatic cell—any cell that is not a sex cell—is taken from the animal to be cloned.

The nucleus of the somatic cell is then transferred into the enucleated egg—either by direct injection or by fusion of the somatic cell to the egg using an electrical current.

The egg now contains the nucleus, with the chromosomal DNA, of the animal to be cloned. It is stimulated to divide, forming an embryo, which is then implanted into the uterus of a surrogate mother. If all goes well, it develops normally and the clone is born. Although this process has been used to successfully clone many different types of animals—including sheep, cows, mules, rabbits, and dogs—its success rate is low, with only a small percentage of embryos surviving to birth.

Cloned animals that survive to birth also appear to age and die prematurely. This is because their DNA comes from adult cells that have undergone telomere shortening—loss of a small portion of the protective ends of chromosomes with each cell division—as part of the normal aging process. While the chromosomal DNA of the clone is the same as that of the nucleus donor, it may have different mitochondrial DNA, since the mitochondria come from the cytoplasm of the egg cell, which is usually from a different animal.

Also, phenotypic differences can occur between the clone and the original animal, due to environmental and epigenetic factors. For example, the first cloned cat, Cc, looked very different from the original cat, because the coat pattern is due to random X-chromosome inactivation in different cells. Despite the technical challenges, reproductive cloning has many potential uses including the production of genetically identical research animals, livestock with desired traits, and offspring of endangered species.

It even has potential applications in human infertility and disease, although cloning of humans has not yet been done, and would raise ethical concerns. Ayala, Francisco J.