Cloning is something that sounds so cool, interesting and catchy. There are a lot of opinions and thoughts on cloning which makes it a heavily controversial topic. The general idea of cloning is that there is two or more of something. In this case, why don’t we clone money? If I have a hundred US dollar bill, I should clone it and have more than one bill. Unfortunately, that’s not how cloning works. According to Michael Rugnetta, a publisher of Encyclopedia Britannica, cloning is the process of generating a genetically identical copy of a cell or an organism (Rugnetta, 2018). So far, there has been successful cloning of animals which include; sheep, cows, horses etc. Makes sense to clone cows so you can have more milk supply.
In the play ‘A Number’ by Caryl Churchill, cloning is seen in both a negative and positive perspective. The positive perspective of cloning in this play is represented through the character of Salter, a lonely father who cloned his child that died in a car crash because he found him ‘perfect’. This can be a justifiable reason as to why cloning can be a good thing, to help reconcile lost loved ones. On the other hand, cloning in this play is also portrayed as something evil. Bernard1, the original Bernard is on a mission to kill his clone Bernard 2 and successfully does it in the end. This puts a negative connotation on cloning and people can end up being afraid of cloning. There is a possibility that cloning can do good for the society but there is also a high possibility that it can lead to disasters such as the murder of Bernard 2 (Churchill, 2002)
Do real clones exist? Yes, they do. The first type of clone is the one that occurs naturally, TWINS. A set of identical twins is considered a clone because these twins have the same exact DNA genetic sequence (Rugnetta, 2018). The second type of cloning is the one that is done in the lab. The cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996 brought a lot of discussions and opinions in the media. There were people who thought it was very unethical and there were people and scientists who thought that it was something phenomenal and that it could be a step closer to changing lives. Dolly the sheep was cloned from the use of adult cells from another sheep. This sheep had three mothers, one mother who provided the DNA, the second mother who provided the egg and the last mother who carried her (Harris, 1997). Apart from dolly the sheep, there have been several animals who have been cloned. The cloning of Macaque monkeys in China brought attention to the process of human cloning since monkeys are similar to humans (Ball, 2018)
Human cloning to be allowed in the world today is a topic of debate. There are disadvantages and advantages of human cloning. The first advantage of human cloning is the reproductive cloning where infertile couples can have children. Not only can infertile couples have children but also same sex couples can also have children without things like sperm donation and surrogacy. With genetic modification, parents are able to choose their children’s traits. With therapeutic cloning, another type of cloning, it will aid the doctors in replacing damaged tissues and organs in the human body and also be able to treat various disorders and diseases. With those two very important advantages, there are also disadvantages (Biology Wise). Human cloning can cause a divide among people and can definitely promote chaos. This can occur because of people’s ethical, cultural and religious beliefs. The people against it argue that cloning interferes with the process of procreation. Clones will not receive equal treatment from their original clones an this can cause unnecessary chaos. Another disadvantage is that, there is no guarantee human cloning won’t be exploited by people who have their own motives. There have also been so many failures when it comes to mammal cloning and this just puts human’s DNA at risk, it can also get contaminated in the process of cloning (Biology Wise)
In my final analysis, the different types of cloning should be taken into consideration and some of the types of cloning should be considered, like therapeutic cloning where new skin cells can be harvested in order to create a healthy body. Human cloning is something that will always be controversial but as the former president of the united states said "It (human cloning) is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society." ― Barack Obama (Biology Wise)
Works Cited
Ball, P. 2018. How afraid of human cloning should you be? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/25/afraid-cloning-humans-macaque-monkeys-reality
Harris, J. 1997. “Goodbye Dolly?” The ethics of human cloning. http://jme.bmj.com/content/24/4/279
Rugnetta, M. 2018. “Cloning” https://www.britannica.com/science/cloning
“Human cloning: The Pros and Cons highlight its risk”
https://biologywise.com/human-cloning-pros-cons