Jeremy A. Belvin-Reed 6-27-2012 Human Cloning: Unproven, Unsafe

Human Cloning is the most controversial subject in biotechnology today. It can be defined as the act of creating a new individual (reproductive) or organism (therapeutic) from the single cell of a parent subject. In reproductive cloning (human cloning) a parent subject is expected to act as a surrogate mother. Making the clone involves using the parent’s empty egg (nucleus and genetic code removed) combined with the nucleus of their own skin cells to create 1 embryo which is now a copy of them. Each time a procedure is formed a life hangs in the balance. This life is treated as property to be experimented on, without consent. People are being sold fantasies with ideas such as clones replacing us and another you. Whether you know it or not, resources for these procedures are costly to you. And so far, non-one is being held responsible. Fobes.com reports that “even if a mere 100 eggs were taken from ten donors, the cost of simply paying the donors could easily reach $50.000.” In hindsight, you are actually paying, out of your tax dollars, $1000 an egg. 12-14 of these eggs are transplanted into one surrogate. If you have 3 patients, the cost of the procedure skyrockets to $42,000 more of your tax dollars.“That means costs to treat one patient (human) could conceivably soar above $100,000.” (www.forbes.com). At this rate every 10 patients out of the hundreds who will volunteer will cost us a million tax dollars. Cloning humans is a costly mistake with risks that out-weigh a virtually non-existent reward. It is for this reason that cloning and all research associated with it should be discontinued. Fact: Scientists have come a long way with how simple the procedure sounds, but there are NO cases with the outcome of a successful human clone. Some people believe that cloning can be an answer to the revival of extinct species, expired loved ones, and a cure for some of our currently incurable medical dilemmas. They’re hope is that the successful reproductive cloning will lead to advancements in the cloning of organs for patients with degenerative diseases. Others believe that cloning is the unethical practice of playing god and the embryos used in these test trials are being treated as commodities instead of potential human beings. According to an article from HumanCloning.org, some couples would view cloning as a viable alternative to in-vitro fertilization. We’ll, a UK scientist named Dr. Panayiotis Zavos proclaimed that he could successfully clone a human being. Implanting a cloned embryo in a human womb is not legal in the UK, so he was forced to flee to a hidden lab in the Middle East. He recruited four subjects who were from Britain, US, and the undisclosed country where the lab was located. He proceeds to make clones of 14 embryos and implant 11 of them into the four women. The remaining three embryos were frozen. The result was 11 failed pregnancies that failed and three wasted embryos. Supporters would view this mortal sacrifice of unborn embryos as necessary. Anti-cloning activists would argue that cloning trials, like the one mentioned above, are a waste of time due to proven instability in the reproductive cycle of the embryo itself. In the article “Cloning of a Human”, simply states that “They have cloned human embryos, but none yet successfully grown past the early stage where they are solid balls of cells known as morulas” (Choi and Charles Q.). The problem always seems to revolve around previous division of the donated cell and the telomeres attached to the chromosomes in the cells. An article from newscientist.com explains that “telomeres are pieces of DNA that protect the ends of chromosomes. They shorten as cells divide and are therefore considered a measure of age.” Therefore, if the cell used to create the embryo is that of thirty year old women, then genetically, the embryo could be thirty years old at birth. As we know, age comes with medical issues like arthritis, cardiovascular problems or cancer, but the only thing for sure is death. Middle-aged cloned babies leave us with an accelerated rate of death. In other words; if you use a skin-cell from a 30-year-old, the cloned babies resulting cells will be aged 30 years at birth. Pro- life and religious groups argue that embryos used in cloning research are prospective persons. Those at religioustolerence.org say that “a fertilized ovum is a full human person. When its nucleus is removed during cloning, that person is, in effect, murdered”. What that should tell you, is that slaughter of theses embryos doesn’t begin at a failed trimester. It starts at removal of the nucleus from the original egg. Opposing groups would say that even a small possibility of success would change everything. Pro-life groups would counter with the fact that “there is no guarantee that the first cloned humans will be normal. The fetus could suffer some disorder that is non-detectable by ultra sound. They may be born disabled. Such problems have been seen in other cloned mammals. There is no reason to assume that they will not happen to humans (cloned)” (religioustolerence.org). Can you imagine how you would feel, if you were brought into this world despite the risk of unforeseen mutations and abnormalities, only to be told you are not even a real human being? Cloning could very well be the end of us; boundaries are being pushed as you read this. Dr. Zavos is now disregarding the failure of his original cloning trials to make attempts at using methods on cells from corpses to raise your dead loved ones. You must admit that our loved ones who have passed on are one of a kind. We can’t just go replacing them with carbon-copies of their former selves. Others are going so far as to argue that clones could replace us as an escape from possible extinction; but the 79% of us who disagree say that, “It is diversity that drive evolution and adaptation.” Evolution is already our only weapon against extinction. Evolution is the natural change in our “inherited” characteristics though our successive generations that allow us to adapt to unforeseen changes and conditions. You see; without the ability to evolve clones are already obsolete. Every -time we lose an embryo to the science of cloning, we are killing a chance for our race to survive.