Scientific, Religious and Emotional Arguments on Cloning
Scientific, Religious and Emotional Arguments on Cloning
Limited genetic diversity. If a pop. of organisms has the same genetic information, then a disease could wipe out the population. This can be done b/c not one organism has the advantage of fighting the disease over the other. This decline in the gene pool is a major problem. Think about it, if everyone has the same genetic material, what happens if we lose the ability to clone? We would have to resort to natural reproduction, causing us to inbreed, which will cause many problems.
Nuclear Transfer is early in its developmental stages and errors occur when scientists carry out the procedure. The success rate is low, particularly using adult donor cells. Even when successful with the cells, only 5% of the embryos transferred lead to live birth. The technique can also lead to large offspring syndrome, characterized by prolonged gestation, increased birth weight, and greater prenatal mortality.
Genetic Defects are also very common in cloning. Negative long-term effects, such as the high incidence of spontaneous abortion and abnormal birth of cloned animals, give concern about cloning humans for reproductive purposes. Cloning is extremely risky and an abnormal baby would be a nightmare come true. One major concern is the possibility that the genetic material used from the adult will continue to age so that the genes in a newborn baby clone could be, for example, 30 years old or more on the day of birth. Many attempts at animal cloning produced disfigured monsters with severe abnormalities. So that would mean creating cloned embryos, implanting them and destroying those that look imperfect as they grow in the womb. However some abnormalities may not appear till after birth. For example, a cloned cow recently died several weeks after birth w/ a huge abnormality of blood cell production.
Early Death. Obesity, immune system problems, and genetic defects have been seen in many animal clones, but now there is a link between cloning and early death. Researchers at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo found that 10 of their 12 mice clones died young. The rodents were found to be suffering from severe pneumonia, liver failure, and tumors. In this case, the risk of creating children who were likely to have much shorter life spans, and problems with immune...