Embracing a Future in Artificial Cloning - Free Essay Example

At this very moment, Tuesday, November 13, 2018, 6:27 am, the website maintained by the U.S. Department of Health Human Services reports that a total of 114,618 men, women, and children are in need of lifesaving organ transplants. For most of these people, their only hope is to be added to the national transplant waiting list maintained by UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) to get a transplant from a deceased donor. Statistically, twenty people die each day waiting for a transplant and only three in one thousand people die in a way that allows for organ donations. What if it was you going through this process? Would you lie in hope that someone would die so that you may live? Or, would you rather get a new organ- harvested from your own cellular makeup- with the added benefit of your body not having to reject a foreign substance? This is an interesting question for an interesting time in the history of mankind, and the science of artificial cloning may be the answer. Cloning. Just the word conjures up visions of protests, counter-protests, laboratories, and tiny cells. It is amazing how these cells that cannot even be seen with the naked eye, can cause such a visceral response while holding the potential to propel medicine to unprecedented possibilities. As human beings, we seem programmed to naturally despise and be afraid of things we do not comprehend. In this paper, cloning will be explained and dissected so that we can comprehend what is involved and what is at stake to help us account the reasons for why a future in cloning should be embraced. So, what exactly is cloning? Cloning is the mechanism of generating genetically identical cells or even whole organisms. This can occur either naturally or artificially. In nature, many organisms such as bacterial cells have been observed producing clones through a process known as asexual reproduction and twins occur through embryo splitting. The process of cloning that will be focused upon in this essay is artificial cloning. Artificial cloning is the method of forced cloning through unnatural means such as manual embryo splitting and nuclear transfer. In embryo splitting, a very early embryo is separated into individual cells or clusters that are allowed to divide and develop for a sho rt time in a Petri dish. These cells could be placed into a surrogate mother to develop into an organism; however, with human embryos, this technique is only used for stem cell proliferation. Nuclear transfer is where the nucleus is removed from a donor egg and genetic material from a donee is implanted in its place. This is a more complicated process that was used to create Dolly the Sheep and is also the subject of heated contentions. Dolly, born on July 5, 1996, was a famous sheep because she was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell- and not an embryo. What scientists from the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland did to clone her was to extract a cell from the mammary gland of a six-year-old Finn Dorset sheep, extracted an egg cell from a Scottish Blackface sheep, and finally placing them all in a surrogate mother (also a Scottish Blackface sheep). In effect, Dolly had three mothers. One provided the DNA; the other provided the egg; a third, the surrogate mother, carried the cloned embryo to term. The form of cloning used to create Dolly is call nuclear transfer which is formally known as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT). In this procedure, the nucleus (containing the organism’s DNA) of a somatic cell is removed and the rest of the cell is discarded. Then, the nucleus of an egg cell is removed. The nucleus of the somatic cell is now inserted into the egg cell. At this point, the egg cell injected with the DNA is stimulated to divide by electric shock. Upon developing into a blastocyst, it is implante d into the surrogate mother who will then carry to term. The cloning of Dolly showed evidence that a cell taken from a specific part of the body could be used to create an exact copy of a whole individual. The moment Dolly was reveal to the world on February 22, 1997, a frenzy started and a firestorm ignited all at the same time. Since its conception, the subject of cloning has been the epicenter of controversy rooted in morality, ethics, and advancement of scientific knowledge. Those who can appreciate the implications from a scientific viewpoint argue in support of cloning. They propose that cloning will bring unimaginable benefits to humanity and, more strictly speaking, will bring about vital improvements in the field of medicine and medical care. On the other polar end of the debate, cloning has been portrayed in a negative light, with such terms as â€Å"killing† being applied in the case of embryos that were unsuccessfully cloned. The opposition questions the morality of cloning and the impacts it could have on human identity become issues of concern. When contemplating constructive ways to apply cloning to medicine, the field of organ transplantation comes to mind as an obvious benefit. Transplanting an organ from one person to another in dire need of it can be a life-saving procedure. However, there are also many risks that come with the procedure. The transplanting of an organ entails retrieving an organ from one person’s body and then transferring it into another person who requires the organ. When a person receives an organ, there is always a risk of their own cells identifying the organ as a foreign body and rejecting it, causing the organ to fail. This leads the transplant patient to undergo severe pain and, in some cases, death. However, many scientists and other proponents of cloning assert that this is the kind of problem that cloning can solve. A transplant patient could get a sample of their DNA used to produce the parts they need to survive. This method would prevent a risky surgery for the donor and there would be no complications involving the body rejecting the new organ due to an incompatibility of cells. Besides improving transplant survival rates, cloning can allow humans to obtain a better understanding of the human body and how it works. The average human lifespan could be extended, diseases that are currently considered fatal could become curable, and people who are infertile could be able to have children through the use of cloning. Plastic, reconstructive, and cosmetic surgeries are performed with a risk of immune diseases affecting the patient due to the foreign bodies being used. With cloning, fat, bone, and cartilage can be produced to match the patient’s DNA precisely. Out of the expectations of wide ranging benefits to come from the science of cloning, emerges a common objection to â€Å"cloning fo r biomedical research† (research involving cloning with the aim of discovering new methods of healing) that involves the â€Å"deliberate killing† of embryos. The Witherspoon Council on Ethics and the Integrity of Science states, â€Å"Much of the debate over cloning for biomedical research therefore concerns the question of the moral status of the embryo† (TheNewAtlantis). Those who oppose artificial cloning propose that science cannot determine when human life begins at the earliest stages of biological development. These same people also claim that because of this uncertain knowledge, scientists are abusing the ambiguous interpretation to destroy embryos and use them in their experiments. Many who are against cloning do so for the sake of religious conviction. They believe that humans are directly created by God and, as such, are made unique in nature. Being able to create human clones would violate the values they place on the individuality each human possess. Some also believe that continued development leading to human cloning may also disrupt the natural view and respectful understanding of sexuality, procreation, and the meaning of motherhood and fatherhood. With much of the focus on the ethics revolving around the embryos and its potential disruption of basic social constructs, some people tend to overlook the complications that come with acquiring the embryos from the women involved. Many people arguing on either side of the debate do not include the negative effects the procedure involved with artificial cloning has on the women whose eggs are used. As a result, the adverse effects these artificial cloning procedures have on women go unnoticed by the public. T he process of collecting these eggs from women is achieved through the stimulation of their ovaries to release more than one egg cell during ovulation. Severe cases of this removal process can result in nausea, ovarian cysts, enlargement of ovaries, and even death. Risks of pelvic infections, injuries, and internal bleeding may also result from the surgical procedures used to extract their eggs. The methods used to influence women into allowing scientists to perform these procedures have also been under much scrutiny. Many women are paid large sums of money by scientists and organizations, encouraging these women to take on the risks involved with the procedures. Continued â€Å"compensation pay† has led some people to interpret the act as an exploitation of women- especially poor women. A final issue to deliberate is where cloning stands with the law. Internationally, 46 countries have banned human cloning. In the United States, as it is stated by The Witherspoon Council on Ethics and the Integrity of Science, â€Å"American cloning policy is something of a patchwork. There is no federal law prohibiting human cloning;† (TheNewAtlantis). Essentially, federal laws and regulations related to cloning have been at a standstill even though there have been several attempts by the house and senate during the past couple decades. Although no federal laws regarding human cloning exist, individual states do have their own laws either prohibiting or permitting human cloning. As for the state of Mississippi, itself, it offers no official guidance and has no laws prohibiting the practice of cloning in any form. In the time it took you to read this essay, another person has been added to the national transplant waiting list. For that person, to wait for a death so that their life can be saved, it is an unfortunate and sordid position to be in. This paper addressed this issue by taking an extremely complex science in artificial cloning, and breaking it down with Dolly the sheep. We can embrace the science for the possibilities it may bring mankind beyond today in the areas of medicine and health. Cloning could help infertile couples have children of their own genetic makeup. Organs could be grown with the patient’s own cellular make-up to avoid the body’s defense mechanisms from rejecting it during transplantation. Artificial cloning assists scientist in their research on diseases so that lives can be prolonged. These are just a few reasons why a future in cloning should be embraced.