Numerous scientific advances provide humans with the necessary tools to treat diseases and even cure them.  In the past decades organ transplants appeared to be disgusting just by the thought to have someone else's organ in one's body.  Such things were once thought to be impossible, but thanks to science they are now common activities in the medical field.  Similarly, a new scientific discovery that consists of duplicating the DNA is called cloning, and is now rejected by many including the United States government.  Despite of the fears that many people have about cloning, cloning is a scientific discovery that can be used to save lives, produce better food quality, and create one's identical twin.

    Cloning refers to making an identical copy of an organism such as plants, animals, and humans.  Dr. Ian Wilmut and his colleagues in Scotland made this scientific breakthrough.  Their first experiment resulted in Dolly, the cloned sheep know today in the entire world.  Dr. Wilmut and his colleagues took cells from an ewe's mammary glands and stopped their development.  Then, they took the nuclei of those cells, which contains the DNA, and transplanted them into sheep oocytes applying an electric current in order to activate their development.  They were later transplanted in the uterus of a female sheep and one little sheep was born in July 5, 1996.  The success rate of this experiment was very low due to the fact that 227 mammary cells were taken from the sheep, 29 of them developed to the blastocyst stage, and only one of them successfully gave birth to Dolly (Liberty 3).

    The most important advantage of cloning will be the opportunity to save lives.  Many people are waiting for compatible organs to be donated or taken from corpses while time is running out and their health deteriorates.  Even when a person finds the donor, the body's immune system may reject the new organ.  With cloning these people will not keep waiting and suffering for a successful organ transplant.  For example, scientists believe that they will be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the areas of heart that have been damaged (Human Cloning 2).  Heart transplants will not be necessary anymore.  In addition, entire livers and kidneys may be cloned and the risk of rejection by the body's immune system will disappear because the new organ will be an identical healthy copy of the original one.  The treatment of leukemia is expected to be one of the first benefits to come from cloning technology since scientists may be able to clone the bone marrow of children and adults suffering from it (Human Cloning 2).  All of these benefits prove that human cloning offers valuable choices to those who are condemned to die due to cancer or unsuccessful organ transplants.

    One more benefit of cloning is the production of better food quality.  For example, “altering the genes of cows and sheep so that they will produce large amounts of pharmaceutically important proteins in their milk, such as insulin or factor VIII to treat hemophilia (Human Cloning 3),” this shows that we can improve our health by eating food with more nutrients and proteins.  Cloning vegetables, fruits and dairy products that are richer in vitamins and protein will be a great improvement in human health.

    Cloning humans is more controversial because it requires the production of an embryo with the same DNA as another.  A human clone is simply a younger twin of another person.  The process will be similar to the sheep's experiment that is taking the nucleus from a cell and placing it into a woman's fertilized egg.  The fetus will have the identical DNA of the person who voluntarily donates the cell.  Most people exaggerate when they imagine hundreds of copies of themselves, which is far from possible because clones will not be mass-produced in a laboratory.  They will be carried in their mother's womb for nine months and will be delivered just like an ordinary baby (Cloning 1).  Many people ask, “Why would anyone want to clone a human being?”  One reason is that childless couples that are unable to reproduce may want to have a clone of one of them as a son or daughter instead of having to go through artificial insemination of a strangers’ ovaries or sperm.  For instance, if a child dies, their parents may want to have a twin of their lost kid.  Many people argue that a cloned human will feel that he is not like everyone else because he or she is identical to another person.  However, this is not very probable due to the existence of 150 million people that are not physically unique.  These people are twins, which happens once in every 67 births (Cloning 4).  Most twins say that having a twin is a blessing.  In a democratic country like ours, we all have the freedom of reproduction and cloning is just one more choice.

    The government of the United States does not support cloning.  President Clinton said, “Any discovery that touches upon human creation is not simply a matter of scientific inquiry, it is a matter of morality and spirituality as well… Each human life is unique, born of a miracle that reaches beyond laboratory science… (Should It Be Done? 3).”  However, cloning is not banned from being practiced in the US and we are forced to ask, who will regulate it?  If the government supports cloning and its research, it will have an important part in its limitations and use.  Some of the limits proposed are that the woman that carries the fetus and the DNA provider should do it voluntarily.  Second, the cloned human will have the same rights and responsibilities of any other human being.  Third, human cloning should be practiced until further research is done and the successful rate is the same as in a normal birth.  One thing to set clear is the difference between cloning and genetic engineering.  Cloning is duplicating the DNA of a person to make a twin.  Genetic engineering works on altering the DNA of humans that may lead to malformed humans (Cloning 4).  And why is genetic engineering allowed?  Human cloning will not harm the human existence, and in its many uses it will be another form of reproduction and the US government should take part in its development to make sure it is properly used.

    The benefits of human cloning are clear since cloning may be useful to save lives by cloning organs of people who need them and avoiding the risk or rejection of the immune system.  Furthermore, by cloning healthy foods, we can improve the human condition and eliminate malnutrition.  Most importantly, human cloning will give childless couples the opportunity to have a baby.  Cloning is not financially supported by the US government, but by private funds.  However, the government should support cloning to regulate the research and make sure it is used only to provide the human kind with benefits.
 
 

Human Cloning:  Should It Be Done?  What Would It Mean? -FAQ’s.  April 9, 2000 http://www.ncgr.org/gpi/odyssey/dolly-cloning/cloninghumans.htm

Human Cloning Foundation.  The Benefits of Human Cloning.  April 9, 2000 http://www.humancloning.org/benefits.htm

Robertson, John.  Human Cloning Foundation.  Liberty, Identity, and Human Cloning.  April 9, 20000
http://www.humancloning.org/liberty.htm

Vere, Steven.  The Case For Cloning Humans.  March 1997.  April 9, 2000 http://www.best.com/~vere/cloning.htm