Cloning: A High Tech Disaster

Life. You carry a child inside you, and it is one of the most special feelings in the world. You nurture it, protect it, and watch it grow. A child, one of God’s most precious gifts. He has the power to give life, but also take it away. I think that’s the way it is, the way it should be, until I saw the headlines. First Human Cloning Pregnancy Claimed-Magazine. Richard Woodman from London wrote the article.

After I got over my initial shock I was filled with disgust. How could anyone think of such a thing? What about birth defects, miscarriages, perhaps even cancer?

According to Glenn McGee, PhD, “Mammalian cloning, through the nuclear transfer process, has resulted in the birth of hundreds of organisms to date. However, significantly more nuclear transfer generated embryos fail during pregnancy than would fail in sexual reproduction, and a substantial majority of cloned animals who have survived to birth have had some significant birth defect.” He also stated that DNA replication of an organism is not normal unless you are a twin.

When I first heard about Dolly, the cloned sheep, I knew the scientists were going to far. What was the purpose? Shouldn’t they be spending their time and money on cures for cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, diabetes, things like that instead of creating abnormalities?

Rudolph Jaenisch, of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge Massachusetts, and Ryuzo Yanagimachi’s laboratory at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, used mice to do stem cell experiments. The stem cells are what forms different tissues in the body.

Their results: Something was wrong. The genes switched on and off in the cloning cells. “This suggests that even apparently normal clones may have subtle aberrations of gene expression that are not easily detected in the animal clone,” said professor Jaenisch. He also warned that attempts to clone humans were ” dangerous and irresponsible.” Professor Wilmut, one of the creators of Dolly agreed with him. Most likely the dangers would include late abortions, birth of children that would die, and abnormal children.

How would society view these children? Would they be considered freaks of nature? No because they were not produced by nature. They were produced by man. Could they think, or feel? Many have speculated whether they would ever be independent, or even have a soul.

As I was doing this research I came across something I did not know. They have cloned a number of cows, to produce greater quantities of milk. They found one dead. They never found the cause, other than an enlarged kidney. At first they thought it had eaten poisoned grass, but the other cows were healthy and showed no signs. Dolly is looking old before her time, and scientists are worrying over the long-term effects of her cloning. The mice show abnormalities, and sudden death, some have miscarried babies.

Dr. Gregory Stock sees it different though. From what I read his opinion is if we don’t do it someone else will.” We can choose to give up our leadership in medical research and watch the British or Chinese set the course, but that will signal our decline. Our fall may take awhile, but it will come.” We can’t avoid the coming advances and wouldn’t want to if we could. The real question is how we handle embryonic stem cells or genetically altered foods, but whether we will continue to embrace the possibilities of the future or will pull back and relinquish these explorations to other braver souls, in other regions of the world.”

So again it seems he really doesn’t care about the effects, just the fact that we get too it first. That’s how I understood it anyway. 

I guess everyone has seen Jurassic Park. So tell me this if they start cloning people, whats to stop them from getting Hitler’s DNA.He wanted a perfect race right? How would it be if he were brought back to life? Oh no, not just one Hitler but two, how about three? What would happen to our world then?

Cat clones? There are so many cats now that no one wants why bring in more. Milk from cloned cows; I might just stop drinking milk. Mice that die, Dolly the sheep that grows old before her time, now as Dr. Gregory Scott puts it Designer babies.

No thank you. As with cats there are so many babies now that no one wants. Adopt one; show love to a real baby.

Think of the diseases. Aids don’t show up for many years. Take tissue from someone that has aids, even if its unknown at the time, clone a baby. Guess what? Clone baby with aids, and the mother and the father too. There are other diseases too.

One more thing to think on, if you did have a “designer baby” could you love it and what kind of life would it have. Would it have a personality?

There is no such thing as a perfect race, yet some scientists continue to try. Though many countries have banned reproduction cloning because of the high risks involved there is also the moral issue. God created man. Seems to me that all these deaths and abnormalities, that come from cloning should be enough to make them stop and think. Could be God is trying to tell them something.