Sarah Miller
A3
Ethics of the cloning of Animals and Humans
Ever since the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, it has been, not only a race to
develop the perfect technique of successfully cloning living organisms, but a heated debate.
People argued it was unethical and unjust of human scientists to ‘play God’, to create copies of
living organisms. Others say it’s one of the world’s greatest scientific and Medical breakthrough of their entire history. However, just like in Michael Crichton’s books, Jurassic Park and
The Lost World, there’s much more behind the scenes than most people realize. So to fully
understand all the perspectives of so many people and scientists, they must know how a clone
is exactly is created, and what happens during the process.
When a group of scientists want to clone a ‘complex’ animal, like mammals or birds,
they take a nucleus from a ‘donor’ animal. “The donor nucleus may come from a variety of cells
in the animal,” (Cloning, word book student), and this is because virtually any cell with a
nucleus contains DNA, which is the key to cloning an animal from any species. The Scientists will
take the donor nucleus and inject it into an egg cell of the same species, or sometimes that had
its own nucleus removed or destroyed. Now the egg cell has the same, exact genetic makeup as
its donor. The product is that a clone is a twin of its one biological parent; whereas the naturally
born child shares its genes with its two parents, dividing it, more or less 50-50, because it takes
half of its DNA from the egg cell, and the other half from the Sperm Cell.
When the nucleus has finally and successfully merged with the egg cell, the new cell
must be activated to become an embryo. Because the Scientists had artificially injected the egg
cell, they must also artificially activate it. To do this, they must shock the cell with a small
electrical charge.
The Next step is where scientists find a ‘road block’. “The DNA of the donor nucleus
must be reprogrammed by the egg.”(Cloning, Word book student) This activates inactive parts
of the original DNA, so the cell is able to develop into a full, working organism. But, this
reprogramming also has an unusually high failure rate, which then the embryo dies before
becoming a fetus, and scientists are often helpless to stop this; so in hopes to counter this high
failure rate, Scientist often implant the cloned embryo into the womb of a surrogate mother of
the same species, who will carry it until birth.
Though there have been quite a few failures in the cloning field, there also have been a
few successful clones. The first were more ‘simple’ animals, like amphibians and some
vegetation, but in the late 90’s, scientists were finally able to clone mammals, like Dolly the
Sheep and other common animals, like cats and cattle, which are quite significantly harder to
clone than reptile or amphibian. And even recently, scientists have created a clone hybrid; A
cross between two species. Artificially taking a male camel nucleus and a female alpaca egg and
Sarah Miller
A3
crossing them, creating two hybrids. Keep in mind that the camel is quite bigger than the
alpaca, so scientists had been more than relieved when the alpaca mother was able to safely
deliver the clone. This shows, that crossbreeding of different species, though they are relatively
close cousins, is quite possible.
Cloning can also yield long-term results as well, such as more goods and products from
cattle. Even higher quality milk, meat and wool.
Even though they are clones, both the original animal and its clone can sometimes look
and act very differently from each other. The behavior of the clone is based on its own
experiences, as it isn’t technically a perfect copy. It doesn’t have the memories or experiences
of the original animal, so it obviously does not have the same ideas, or morals. Sometimes,
cloned animals may have different markings from the original, like a calico cat. The original may
be white with dark brown splotches, and the clone may be painted ginger and brown.
Technically speaking, a clone is merely a twin from the original, “Twins are genetically exactly
alike,” (Cloning, Word book student). Same genetic makeup, but each has a different type of
behavior and physical characteristics. “If I expect that baby to become another me, a copy, no
way, because he can’t have my life, can’t have my accidents, my good luck, my bad luck, my
experiences…” (Dr. Francis Collins), like twins, the behavior will vary, because no matter how
much the twins experience the same things together, they will have a different outlook on life,
a different kind of memory on the same event.
However, the concern of cloning animals is dwarfed quite significantly by the question
of cloning humans. People have wondered that if they could successfully clone mammalian
animals, why not humans? It is a heated debate and severe concern among the people. Many
think of it as unnatural and evil, and most of all unethical. Others, on the other hand, say they
that clones would be perfect as donors, so they wouldn’t have to wait months or years on
donations and medicine when a transplant is desperately needed. Or when expecting parents
lose their infant, cloning would enable them to raise a copy of their child. But, there are a great
deal of people who are in a gray area of this conflict.
People in the gray area are more neutral, but in truth, are sometimes against human
cloning. Many of them believe that human cloning should only go as far as ‘organ’ cloning. So
scientists would clone a person’s heart and if that said person needed a transplant later in their
life, they already had a perfect replacement at hand. Others go a bit farther, saying that if a
couple loses their infant early on that scientists, with the couples’ consent, should clone the
dead infant, and a few months later, the couple will have their child.
But there is still a problem. The process of cloning mammals has not been perfected yet.
Scientists are still having a large bit of trouble successfully cloning mammals. As stated
Sarah Miller
A3
previously, mammals are among the hardest classes to clone, due to their complexity; and
there are several health problems that occur during and after the cloning process. All resulting
in death or deformity, usually both. And it is because of this, that cloning is banned in many,
several countries. At least, of humans.
Because human cloning is illegal, scientists are usually cloning animals and testing new
techniques to perfect it. Such as hybrids. But some people are suggesting that people take it
farther, to ‘bring back the extinct’. Or in more plainer terms, to create a ‘Jurassic Park’ of sorts.
1999, professor Michael Archer had gained access to an extraordinarily well-preserved female
Thylacine pup, or Tasmanian Tiger. The Tasmanian Tiger went officially went extinct in 1936,
due to overhunting by the human population. This also means, because it was relatively recent,
there are more samples of DNA, more to work with than what a fossil would yield. Michael
Archer has started a project to extract DNA from the pup, and other Thylacine samples from all
over Australia.
So while human cloning is already illegal, unethical and banned, people are finding ways
to bring back animals from either the brink of extinction, or from extinction itself. While the
dinosaurs are a long way out of the park, some Ice age animals have become well-preserved in
Ice and peat, such as the baby mammoth, Lyuba, and recent extinctions like the Thylacine yield
many more samples of DNA. Though Lyuba’s species would most likely die if released into the
wild, due to their habitat’s destruction, the Thylacine’s habitat is mostly there, and their
ecosystem. Other endangered animals also have this chance to comeback from the brink. While
farmers can easily breed their cattle and livestock, animals like the Clouded Leopard and the
African Rhinos and Elephants are hunted frequently for their ivory horns and exotic pelts,
leaving less animals to populate. Cloning will help repopulate the gene pool, and hopefully
eradicate the danger of extinction.