Quotation of the Day
“The Ramones don’t jam.”
— Jerry Harrison
About our schedule
MARCH 21: NO CLASS
MARCH 26: NO CLASS
The next time we meet:
MARCH 28: QUIZ #4 ON SINGER
CLONING
How babies are made (PG version)
Sperm fertilizes ovum.
This takes place in fallopian tube.
Fertilized ovum is a single cell. It divides
a few times.
The cell-cluster travels down tube, into
uterus.
The cell-cluster attaches to the uterus
wall.
Nine months later, a baby is born.
But . . .
The process of fertilization and celldivision is very delicate, and things can
go wrong.
About 40% of the time, the cell-cluster
never implants in the uterine wall.
It is washed out with the monthly
menstrual flow, and the woman never
knows that she almost got pregnant.
But . . .
1 in 12 couples is infertile, and today this
is treated as a medical problem.
Treatments include:
• scheduled sex
• fertility drugs
• IVF
In vitro fertilization
Some facts about in vitro
fertilization
• Current cost: $10,000 per try
• Chances of success: 25%
• Chances of birth defects: same as
in “normal” pregnancy
• In U.S., since 1981, about 45,000
children have been born in this
way.
Leading opponents of IVF
Pope John Paul II
Leon Kass
President Bush’s Ethics Adviser
Ethical Objections:
• It’s unnatural--we are “tampering
with sacred things.”
• the problem of the discarded
embryos
• the slippery slope
Cystic Fibrosis
• a genetically transmitted disease
• 1 in 22 caucasians are carriers
• if both parents are carriers, 25%
chance the baby will actually
have the disease
What can be done? Genetic
screening
• instead of beginning pregnancy
in the “normal” way, use IVF
techniques
• after fertilization occurs, when
zygote is 4-8 cells, see if zygote
will have CF
• implant only zygotes without CF
• so far there have been about 200
successful screenings of this sort
Cloning?
Somatic Cell Transfer
Cloning
The Three Most Important Facts
About Human Cloning
1. A clone would be a baby just like
any other baby.
2. There is no important difference
between a clone and an identical
twin.
3. You cannot duplicate yourself.
Would cloning be unethical? The most
popular arguments:
• A clone would not have a soul.
• A clone would have no mother or father.
• Clones could be used for “spare parts.”
• Rich people would want to make copies
of themselves.
• If we cloned Michael Jordan five times,
we would have a hell of a basketball
them.
Would cloning serve any good
purpose?
• A couple has a child, call him Bobby.
• Bobby is killed.
• They want to have another child,
• but the man is sterile.
• Bobby’s tissue samples still exist.
• They can use SCT techniques to have
a child with Bobby’s DNA.
• Would this be wrong?
But there’s a good reason why
human cloning should not be done
at the present time:
• Our techniques are not yet good
enough to ensure that the baby
would be OK.