crusader_daisyy
January 12th, 2002, 09:43 AM
greetings to all..:)
.. all this cloning business's getting sucha bore and out of hand by the days unfortunately.. and our dearie dolly contracted arthrisis, shame on those scientists.. yeah?? nonetheless, i've decided to share my project with everyone here... for some, it may not exactly be that boring after all, though it's tough gettin' through all these meaty words, well, after being whacked on the head the real consequences of cloning and thereafter, i suppose it's time to wake up and smell the coffee...
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PROJECT 6TH ELEMENT:
A highly opinionated but discursive report on genetic engineering and its social and judicial consequences on the human race
"More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly."
- Woody Allen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO JUSTIFY OUR CALL
Otherwise known as expressing “the rationale for the choice of the project topic”
Some people have expressed their dismay at our choice of topic. “What?! You’re doing GENETIC ENGINEERING?! Of all things, GENETIC ENGINEERING? Couldn’t you have chosen something easier?” This is often the reaction we get from acquaintances and friends when we first reveal our intention to attempt on this tedious topic for project work. It is in their opinion that our choice is too ambitious to handle. We begged to differ, which was why we continued to do the project-- against the advice of plenty.
We won’t say that the process has been easy, but it has certainly been an enlightening task. While we sieved through the multitude of information for those helpful and relevant to the core of our project, we more often than not got lost in the massive pool of information and we have more than once stopped to ask ourselves if this was indeed too ambitious. But we are now at the end of our project, concluding and editing, and all that work and endless reading of technical books has paid off.
For us, the entire project itself was a challenge. For starters, none of us had any more-than-mediocre knowledge of biological terms, and none of us were highly informed in the field of medical science. Understanding the technical terms alone was a hard nut to crack. So why, exactly why, did we choose to do Cloning instead of a less demanding topic?
The answer is simple. It is because it will soon become central in our lives. The roots of cloning did not just start in the early 90s, as we learnt in our research, but from the very first successful vitro-fertilized baby. For something that was going to be very important to everyone in the near future, we thought that it was most obvious to find out more about it, instead of letting the developments of cloning advance without a single clue of its progress or even the roots of it.
Our project centrals on the possible social and legal problems that cloning will bring to the society. By evaluating these problems (which we came to conclude after hours of toiling research), the society can decide if the price we may have the pay is worth what cloning may do. We will also look at the pros and cons of cloning, and weigh them on a pseudo-virtual scale. But ultimately, it is the individual that decides if cloning is a feasible idea (for which we conducted a survey that revealed some interesting opinions and perceptions).
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AN INTRODUCTION TO CLONING
Dolly and the game itself
Cloning is defined as genetically identical copies of a single cell or organism.
The pioneers in the field of animal cloning can be said to be a team led by John Gurdon at the University of Cambridge. They carried out their research in the 1970s using frogs.
On the 24 February 1997, the genetic field reached another peak with the arrival of Dolly the sheep, which was created by somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning.
STAGES OF THE SOMATIC CELL NUCLEAR TRANSFER
(HOW, BASICALLY, IS CLONING DONE)
1. An udder cell is taken from the donor sheep.
2. An egg cell is taken from another sheep and its nucleus (with its DNA) removed.
3. The empty egg cells are fused with the udder cells by subjecting them to an electric current.
4. The resulting dividing cells are cultured for a week until an early embryo forms.
5. The early embryo (a blastocyst) is implanted into a surrogate ewe’s womb.
(Success rate of such a method is very low, which is less than 1%. If it could be applied to humans, it means that each one of us could have clones made from our own tissue, containing the same DNA.)
Before cloning the adult sheep, researchers had created mammalian clones only from embryo cells using one of the three techniques: blastomere separation, blastocyst division and twinning (nuclear transplantation). For each technique, an embryo is produced by in vitro fertilization (IVF), where an egg is fertilized with sperm in a laboratory dish. Once fertilised, the embryo is allowed to divide into a 2-to-8-cell stage after which is cloned by one of the three techniques.
Theoretically, people could be cloned because both sheep and humans are mammals. The technology used to clone one species could theoretically be applied to the other, yet no one has presented the capability to clone humans publicly. Though it does not appear possible to clone humans, people are concerned that this technique could, in future, be developed to a point that is possible to do so.
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SOCIO-BIOETHICS
The more complicated version of why and what
Looking it from the perspective of individuals and more, we attempt to analyse the various reasons why cloning is wanted by people.
The scientist who advocates cloning may do so for several reasons. One of the most obvious is to earn money and fame. The equally obvious fact would be that to be able to clone humans first would be a historical breakthrough that would create much disturbance and attention in this world. Many scientists have expressed their wishes to be that very first pioneer in succeeding. Already we have seen how some scientists are exploiting science for commercial purposes. One fine example is the sale of genes to a certain company
Then again, there are always good Samaritans who are truly fascinated by the various possibilities cloning opens us up to. These people usually are happy about cloning because it would assist people in procreation should they be infertile. Or in the case of certain minorities (i.e. Homosexual couples) in reproducing through laboratory ways because of inability to produce due to preferred way of sexuality. These Homosexuals would rather not adopt because the child won't carry their own genes. They are more keen on a child with their own family genes.
But there are also uses of cloning for which would not include procreation! Cloning of human parts as substitutes for damaged internal and external parts of the body is also one of the main advantages of cloning. Just imagine! If a patient has leukaemia and needs a bone marrow transfer but has difficulty finding a match, the required bone marrow may be cloned and transferred onto the man, thus saving his life.
And yet, there are some obsessed with perfection will justify their call to clone by saying that it may just as well open up that door to create the "perfect" human, one who is immune to common diseases and the various weaknesses (which may be subjective to the reader’s sense) the “imperfect” human carries.
For one who carries the pain of losing a loved one, they will most probably play advocate for cloning so that the clone acts as a "child replacement" or a 'replacement' for a lost loved one.
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SOCIAL PROBLEMS CLONING COULD BRING ABOUT
The prelude of the effects
So, indeed, the world of cloning will open up an entirely new path towards entirely new possibilities. But we surely should think about the consequences! For one thing, Cloning may bring about unprecedented disasters. Cloning may just fail miserably and introduce a new, fatal and incurable disease to the human race. This disease may be more deadly than AIDS itself, and it may just wipe out the entire human population.
Recent discoveries by various studies showed that cloning is indeed consequential in negative senses. The recent study in the Science Journal, in which mice were used for testing purposes of the effects of cloning, found the genes used in cloning do not function properly and even cause abnormalities in mice! This reinforces that fact that cloning is against nature and may cause more problems. The gene is an incredibly sensitive subject; any slight modification in ANY vibe will cause inexplicably LARGE changes, with the probability of it being a deformity higher. (Relevant questions are raised later in the section regarding judicial aspects of cloning).
There are also social aspects we must take into consideration. Cloning may bring about more social problems; can the society accept them? Is the society willing to embrace them or would they be regarded as abnormal outcasts?
And what about their identity? Would the clone be regarded as original, or should it adopt a new identity? Would the clone then have the same birthday as the original, or would the clone be given a separate birth date?
Also, there is a strong sense of disillusioned concepts of "immortality" through cloning. While it is hard to believe, there is indeed a fair amount of ignorance about cloning! Some have the concept that one can attain immortality through cloning as the clone can carry on living after one dies. (Which we pose the question to; what is the value of life, if immortality can indeed be achieved? Is it still as important and worthy? It is after all said that one may never embrace the misfortune unless the great tragedy is experienced.) Let us look at the results of our survey before proceeding to elaborate on the effects of cloning on different levels.
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STATISTICAL DATA
Understanding the general response
We conducted a survey to investigate the society’s attitude towards and knowledge of cloning. The survey takers’ ages ranged from a 13-year-old boy to retired ladies and gentlemen and consisted of 41 people. All in all, we asked 9 simple questions regarding cloning and selected 7 questions for statistical record. We have covered a wide scope and discovered…
-- 2% of our survey takers were uninformed about cloning. The other 98%, however, were more informed than the 2%. We also went on to ask about their level of understanding of cloning and discovered…
-- …That only 2% of the survey takers claimed to have very extensive knowledge of cloning (we believe that the 2% constitutes of our General Paper tutor). The majority claims to have a good and adequate knowledge of cloning. 25% decided that they were not very informed on the subject, but had at least some sort of knowledge. After explaining the basics of Cloning to the 2% who never heard of cloning before (who, by the way, was the 13-year-old), we continued asking some questions that was relevant to the core of our project.
-- We found that the majority (63%) disapproved of cloning. These results came mainly from teenagers and people in their early twenties. Surprisingly, most of the survey takers from the older generation found the idea acceptable.
-- 57% of the people actually found that cloning was beneficial overall! Then again, some of them did not find themselves knowledgeable on the subject (which was why we did this project anyway).
-- While a fair number of them agreed that cloning was beneficial overall and that they approved of it, 42% did not like the idea of clones living around them. Only a mere 10% liked the idea and 10% didn’t really care much about clones and society. 19% found that it was fine though, and 19% didn’t really mind it.
-- For those which we asked to consider the possibilities of their own infertilities, 32% decided that they’d rather not have any children, while the rest of the majority, 56%, would choose to adopt over the 12% who chose cloning.
-- Finally, we understood that 73% felt that clones should be given the same human rights as us and that 27% thought otherwise. (Wonder why?)
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EFFECTS OF CLONING
The meat of the report
Clone wise
Sadly though unsurprisingly enough, a clone is likely harbor potential physical disorders. Apart from the fact that his birth mother will suffer high possibilities of multiple miscarriages, the child clone himself is extremely plausible to contract severe developmental abnormalities, from physical disabilities to serious genetic diseases, from birth till in the long run. How depressing can life get from the eyes of a thinking yet under-performing clone?
Psychologically, there is bound to be a certain level of degradation on the quality of parenting and family life from a clone’s point of view. There are numerous temptations for parents to seek excessive control over their children’s (clone’s) characteristics, to value them according to how well they meet overly detailed parental expectations and thus, undermining the general acceptance and openness that typify loving families! Growing up as a child and beyond under such stressful circumstances can certainly prove to be overwhelming, not to mention, mentally tiring. This type of psychological harm can cause a loss of identity and uniqueness in a child clone. In other words, whether having the same genome as another person will undermine that unique qualitative identity, still remains a controversial issue.
Whether it is a mistake to believe the crude genetic determinism – that one’s gene’s builds one’s fate -- what is more important in the case of the clone is one’s experience of freedom and ability to create a life for oneself or the extent to which one thinks his future is open and undetermined. A later clone might grant that he is not destined to follow his earlier twin’s footsteps, nevertheless, the earlier twin’s life would always haunt the later clone, standing as an undue influence on the latter’s life. Let us put ourselves in the clone’s shoes and walk around in his skin; life will never be the same again.
A clone may not get along well in the family in due course. These are concerns about the possibility of generating large numbers of people whose life choices are, exasperatingly, limited by their own constrained self-image or by the constraining expectations of parents. In other words, parenting (here), is depicted as a manufacturing company whose only aim is to ‘manufacture’ children according to expectations.
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Society VS the clones
Would clones qualify to be part of society, then?
And yet another question is raised. Can society ever accept clones? In our survey, y. Only 10% showed substantial evidence in their answers to accepting clones, compared to the 42% who expressed dislike on living with a clone in the same society. The rest? Apparently, they don’t really care much.
Indeed, as we consider the possible spectacular future Cloning may bring, we must also know that cloning may generate a new wave of discrimination that is much more serious than the racial discrimination we, as a society, took years to overcome (and yet have not completely succeeded). For which we introduce clones to our society, our group is more than confident to say that alienation of the clone will occur and the discriminating point of view for people to carry will then be: “YOU ARE NOT HUMAN.” And we do believe that the sound of it alone is belittling enough.
How about the concept of individuality, that “you are completely unique, because you are you”? More often than not, we have been told by mentors and teachers to embrace our uniqueness and individuality. Each person was one of a kind, each with their own matchless DNA, which would not be the case should cloning of a human succeed. There would be two people with the same DNA. Then where can we place our individuality on? To put it bluntly, we would be replaceable, no longer inimitable and distinctive as ourselves.
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Judicially speaking
(what has been done?)
Research on human genome and the resulting applications may, in future, help to improve health of individuals and of the human race. Yet, we have to ensure that these researches respect human dignity and individual rights. There are plenty of approaches towards the ethical aspect of the preambles of cloning and the event itself.
Internationally, there are two ethics committees, one governmental, UNESCO, and the other non-governmental, HUGO. Created to study the ethical, legal and social issues surrounding the human genetics, these organizations have yet to issue an explicit statement on cloning.
But thus far, the council of Europe (which is the central of 40 countries) adopted the convention for Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard To The Application of Biology and Medicine in Medical research on human beings in 1990. The council had stated in its preamble to Medical Research on Human Beings that “…medical research contrary to human dignity should never be carried out.”
The European Parliament had earlier issued in 1989 a statement that defined cloning as a crime. It was said that any attempt to perform cloning was to be considered a criminal offense, and the parliament officially “put an end” to cloning by making it legal in 1994.
The International Law Association in 1988 stated that cloning research was to be restricted to medical aids only, not the “creation of life”, taking into consideration of innate human pride for the clone. Similarly, the 93rd Inter-Parliamentary conference of 1996 mentioned “The indivisibility of the human body and the intangibility of the genetic heritage of the human species”. In the 196 charter on Sexual and Reproductive rights and access to “Safe and acceptable” reproduction technologies were mentioned without further definition! Which means that no one really knows what is “safe and acceptable”.
The Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992 covers that for any clinic or laboratory attempting to initiate pregnancies by somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning will be subjected to the federal government and the results of the experiments must be made known to the public. If the session is shown to be ineffective or dangerous for the tissue donor or resulting child, the operation will be closed down. Conduct or funding of any researches aimed at cloning humans are also restricted.
There are also a number of state laws in the US, which would restrict privately funded research too. Just yesterday (August 03, 2001), US president, George Bush, passed a law that banned all medical researches on human cloning.
Basically, from the first establishment to the last till date, all laws oppose cloning, the European councils being most open about it. None of them are willing to accept the failures of cloning.
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Ethically
There are many opposing groups against the cloning of human beings highlighting the ethical concerns.
Data suggests that cloning of human beings would be physically dangerous and there are other potential
risks in which we have limited information. They are cumulative nuclear mutations which may lead to cancer, deformities and arising of new diseases., premature aging of clones and risks of abnormal development. The opponents were also concern that cloning would undermine the autonomy and individuality of children, the internal experience of the clone. The clone may fell that they are living under shadow, which seems to have already been lived and played out by another. Also people will tend to expect the clones to be exactly the same as the origins. What will happen if the copy of Einstein shows no interest in science and copy of Lee Kwan Yew has no interest in politics?
Though there people who think that we should let individuals to decide whether to bear child through somatic cell nuclear transfer technology just as they can decide whether to use in vitro fertilization or not, others still bear the idea that a new live should be created with contributions of sex. Furthermore,
cloning does not fulfill the meaning and fulfillment of one’s own life but implies on controlling the nature and characteristics of a human being, which is immoral and unethical.
Every child should be wanted for itself yet, the idea of cloning defeat this statement since the child is deliberately being specified to develop in some way or another.
Cloning is seen as diminishing the value of human individuality and as violating basic norms of respect for human life and the integrity of human species. Hence, the wholeness, individuality, respect and sanctity of life will be questioned.
Cloning of human beings, if successful, will contradicts the idea of God who is supposed to be the
creator of human. Then what would the religions that hold utmost belief that God made all humans say to it? Also, there may be a great possibility of misuses and abuses of cloning which many feel that there is nothing we can do to prevent except applying laws which may not be very applicable since it is hard to track down whoever is misusing or abusing it since they may be non-governmental groups which works underground.
The New York Times had reported that a person named Randolf Wicker actually decided to seek a scientist to help him clone himself. This proves that legislation cannot assure that its citizen acts morally.
Most important of all, we think that one cannot presume the future clone consent to be a clone, even a healthy one. The clone though has the genes of the original, may not be able to think exactly like its original. As mentioned in the earlier paragraphs, the clone will be living in the shadow, which no human beings would want to. How many of us here are sure the clones will want to be clones even though it may be the original who wanted a clone of himself so as to carry on living and how different will the clone feel from the natural human being? The clone may even grow up with psychological problems, which we human beings have contributed to. Are we not playing God when we wanted to clone, regardless of animals or human beings? And do we have the right to do so?
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Economically
The more ludicrous of all this should be the commercialization of cloning. Previously, when vitro fertilization was first introduced, clinics sprung up all over the country of USA providing services of artificial birth to infertile couples. There was a huge demand for vitro-fertilization, and because the foundations of law for this aspect were not laid properly, patients who paid full faith to their doctors were betrayed by some of their underground doings.
A perfect example would be the usage of sperm. An infertile couple that decided to undergo vitro fertilization in hopes of a child that would at least be half their “own” requested for a sperm donor with specific physical requirements (most of which would constitute “good looking” elements such as blond hair, blue eyes and such) and is promised that by the operating doctor. The sperm donor is supposedly selected and the mother of the child undergoes transfer of her fertilized egg into her womb. After pregnancy, she gives birth to a healthy baby girl and after years, they realize that she looks oddly familiar…hey! Wait a minute! She looks just like the doctor that was in charge the mother’s pregnancy!
What happened in the case above was the doctor had used his own sperm, instead of whatever that was promised. On the way to maximize profits, the doctor takes the commission of the sperm donor for his own and “earns” the “extra” income. This violated the promise between the doctor and the patient then, but the doctor was not liable to legal charges because there was no law that stated his act as a crime then.
What is illustrated here is the level of deceit people would obtain in order to get more money. For some part, cloning itself has become an economic exploitation. Unknown to plenty, scientists all over the world are currently analyzing the compositions of the different DNA, filing patents for each new genome they discover and claiming its “marketing rights” to be their own. But the fact remains that for each genome patented, 1 out of 10 people are in possession of it. So how can it even qualify as property to be patented in the first place?
But perhaps it is already too late to consider that. After all, scientists are selling the genomes to various medical companies for huge sums of money. In fact, one research organization took liberty to sell a major medical company in the United States more genomes than there really was. What was once a gift of nature to man, be now the patented property of a money-minded company somewhere in the States.
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Conclusively
When all is said and done
After reviewing the possible effects and problems of cloning and weighing it against the pros of cloning, our group has come to a conclusion that it is not worth the price to even attempt to clone. Yes, indeed, cloning would open new doors to new worlds – but no one can be sure of what the future may bring. While the phrase “No pain No gain” still stands valid, we have asked ourselves whether or not the “gain” would come, and what if it doesn’t?
Because at this point of time, we have more than enough reason to say that cloning is not ready to take place in our society yet. Fundamentally, our society has plenty of problems that we have yet to find solutions to, and Cloning is in no way a solution, at the very least, to these problems. We can even rather confidently say that it would create more problems.
Indeed, cloning is a glorious prospect, but we should not be concentrating on that at the moment. The conclusion of this project is that cloning brings more harm than benefit, contrary to what the 43% who believed that cloning was beneficial overall thought. We must always take in account the possibility of failure.
After all, man is still not “God”.
We, however, find that medical research on cloning of human parts should not be banned. In fact, that aspect would be more feasible as the price of it would be much, much less than the cloning of a human (because when its about a human, it talks about the creation of life and the responsibility of it).
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The Bibliography
References and sources
Wade, Nicholas. (1998). The Science Times Book of Genetics. Lyons Press
Morton Jenkins. (Ed). (2001) Teach Yourself 101 Key Ideas: Genetics (Teach Yourself 101 Key Ideas). Hodder & Stoughton
Gregory E. Pence. (Ed). (1998) Flesh of my Flesh: the Ethics of cloning humans. Rowman & Littlefield Publishing
Roger Gosden. (1999). Designing Babies: The Brave New World Of Reproduction. W H Freeman & Co
Dean H. Hamer, Peter Copeland. (1999). Living With Our Genes : Why They Matter More Than You Think. Anchor
Books
V. E. A. Russo, David Cove, Enzo Russo. (1998). Genetic Engineering : Dreams and Nightmares. Oxford Univ Press
Lori B. Andrews. (2000). The Clone Age : Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology. Henry Holt
Gina Bari Kolata. (1999). Clone the Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead : The Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead. William Morrow & Company
Leon R. Kass, James Q. Wilson. (1998). The Ethics of Human Cloning. AEI Press
Straits Times, Singapore. (2001) Scientists issue new warning over cloning [On-Line]. Available: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/health/story/0,3324,56006,00.html (10/7/01)
DNApatent.com (1999) What is genetic engineering? [On-Line]. Available: http://www.dnapatent.com/science/index.html (10/7/01)
Straits Times, Singapore. (2001) US House votes to ban all human cloning [On-Line]. Available: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/breakingnews/story/0,1895,61221,00.html (1/8/01)
Erika Check. (2000). Cloning Pigs for Parts. Newsweek Magazine, p.65
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*whew...*
daisyy
.. all this cloning business's getting sucha bore and out of hand by the days unfortunately.. and our dearie dolly contracted arthrisis, shame on those scientists.. yeah?? nonetheless, i've decided to share my project with everyone here... for some, it may not exactly be that boring after all, though it's tough gettin' through all these meaty words, well, after being whacked on the head the real consequences of cloning and thereafter, i suppose it's time to wake up and smell the coffee...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROJECT 6TH ELEMENT:
A highly opinionated but discursive report on genetic engineering and its social and judicial consequences on the human race
"More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly."
- Woody Allen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO JUSTIFY OUR CALL
Otherwise known as expressing “the rationale for the choice of the project topic”
Some people have expressed their dismay at our choice of topic. “What?! You’re doing GENETIC ENGINEERING?! Of all things, GENETIC ENGINEERING? Couldn’t you have chosen something easier?” This is often the reaction we get from acquaintances and friends when we first reveal our intention to attempt on this tedious topic for project work. It is in their opinion that our choice is too ambitious to handle. We begged to differ, which was why we continued to do the project-- against the advice of plenty.
We won’t say that the process has been easy, but it has certainly been an enlightening task. While we sieved through the multitude of information for those helpful and relevant to the core of our project, we more often than not got lost in the massive pool of information and we have more than once stopped to ask ourselves if this was indeed too ambitious. But we are now at the end of our project, concluding and editing, and all that work and endless reading of technical books has paid off.
For us, the entire project itself was a challenge. For starters, none of us had any more-than-mediocre knowledge of biological terms, and none of us were highly informed in the field of medical science. Understanding the technical terms alone was a hard nut to crack. So why, exactly why, did we choose to do Cloning instead of a less demanding topic?
The answer is simple. It is because it will soon become central in our lives. The roots of cloning did not just start in the early 90s, as we learnt in our research, but from the very first successful vitro-fertilized baby. For something that was going to be very important to everyone in the near future, we thought that it was most obvious to find out more about it, instead of letting the developments of cloning advance without a single clue of its progress or even the roots of it.
Our project centrals on the possible social and legal problems that cloning will bring to the society. By evaluating these problems (which we came to conclude after hours of toiling research), the society can decide if the price we may have the pay is worth what cloning may do. We will also look at the pros and cons of cloning, and weigh them on a pseudo-virtual scale. But ultimately, it is the individual that decides if cloning is a feasible idea (for which we conducted a survey that revealed some interesting opinions and perceptions).
____________________________________________________
AN INTRODUCTION TO CLONING
Dolly and the game itself
Cloning is defined as genetically identical copies of a single cell or organism.
The pioneers in the field of animal cloning can be said to be a team led by John Gurdon at the University of Cambridge. They carried out their research in the 1970s using frogs.
On the 24 February 1997, the genetic field reached another peak with the arrival of Dolly the sheep, which was created by somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning.
STAGES OF THE SOMATIC CELL NUCLEAR TRANSFER
(HOW, BASICALLY, IS CLONING DONE)
1. An udder cell is taken from the donor sheep.
2. An egg cell is taken from another sheep and its nucleus (with its DNA) removed.
3. The empty egg cells are fused with the udder cells by subjecting them to an electric current.
4. The resulting dividing cells are cultured for a week until an early embryo forms.
5. The early embryo (a blastocyst) is implanted into a surrogate ewe’s womb.
(Success rate of such a method is very low, which is less than 1%. If it could be applied to humans, it means that each one of us could have clones made from our own tissue, containing the same DNA.)
Before cloning the adult sheep, researchers had created mammalian clones only from embryo cells using one of the three techniques: blastomere separation, blastocyst division and twinning (nuclear transplantation). For each technique, an embryo is produced by in vitro fertilization (IVF), where an egg is fertilized with sperm in a laboratory dish. Once fertilised, the embryo is allowed to divide into a 2-to-8-cell stage after which is cloned by one of the three techniques.
Theoretically, people could be cloned because both sheep and humans are mammals. The technology used to clone one species could theoretically be applied to the other, yet no one has presented the capability to clone humans publicly. Though it does not appear possible to clone humans, people are concerned that this technique could, in future, be developed to a point that is possible to do so.
____________________________________________________
SOCIO-BIOETHICS
The more complicated version of why and what
Looking it from the perspective of individuals and more, we attempt to analyse the various reasons why cloning is wanted by people.
The scientist who advocates cloning may do so for several reasons. One of the most obvious is to earn money and fame. The equally obvious fact would be that to be able to clone humans first would be a historical breakthrough that would create much disturbance and attention in this world. Many scientists have expressed their wishes to be that very first pioneer in succeeding. Already we have seen how some scientists are exploiting science for commercial purposes. One fine example is the sale of genes to a certain company
Then again, there are always good Samaritans who are truly fascinated by the various possibilities cloning opens us up to. These people usually are happy about cloning because it would assist people in procreation should they be infertile. Or in the case of certain minorities (i.e. Homosexual couples) in reproducing through laboratory ways because of inability to produce due to preferred way of sexuality. These Homosexuals would rather not adopt because the child won't carry their own genes. They are more keen on a child with their own family genes.
But there are also uses of cloning for which would not include procreation! Cloning of human parts as substitutes for damaged internal and external parts of the body is also one of the main advantages of cloning. Just imagine! If a patient has leukaemia and needs a bone marrow transfer but has difficulty finding a match, the required bone marrow may be cloned and transferred onto the man, thus saving his life.
And yet, there are some obsessed with perfection will justify their call to clone by saying that it may just as well open up that door to create the "perfect" human, one who is immune to common diseases and the various weaknesses (which may be subjective to the reader’s sense) the “imperfect” human carries.
For one who carries the pain of losing a loved one, they will most probably play advocate for cloning so that the clone acts as a "child replacement" or a 'replacement' for a lost loved one.
____________________________________________________
SOCIAL PROBLEMS CLONING COULD BRING ABOUT
The prelude of the effects
So, indeed, the world of cloning will open up an entirely new path towards entirely new possibilities. But we surely should think about the consequences! For one thing, Cloning may bring about unprecedented disasters. Cloning may just fail miserably and introduce a new, fatal and incurable disease to the human race. This disease may be more deadly than AIDS itself, and it may just wipe out the entire human population.
Recent discoveries by various studies showed that cloning is indeed consequential in negative senses. The recent study in the Science Journal, in which mice were used for testing purposes of the effects of cloning, found the genes used in cloning do not function properly and even cause abnormalities in mice! This reinforces that fact that cloning is against nature and may cause more problems. The gene is an incredibly sensitive subject; any slight modification in ANY vibe will cause inexplicably LARGE changes, with the probability of it being a deformity higher. (Relevant questions are raised later in the section regarding judicial aspects of cloning).
There are also social aspects we must take into consideration. Cloning may bring about more social problems; can the society accept them? Is the society willing to embrace them or would they be regarded as abnormal outcasts?
And what about their identity? Would the clone be regarded as original, or should it adopt a new identity? Would the clone then have the same birthday as the original, or would the clone be given a separate birth date?
Also, there is a strong sense of disillusioned concepts of "immortality" through cloning. While it is hard to believe, there is indeed a fair amount of ignorance about cloning! Some have the concept that one can attain immortality through cloning as the clone can carry on living after one dies. (Which we pose the question to; what is the value of life, if immortality can indeed be achieved? Is it still as important and worthy? It is after all said that one may never embrace the misfortune unless the great tragedy is experienced.) Let us look at the results of our survey before proceeding to elaborate on the effects of cloning on different levels.
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STATISTICAL DATA
Understanding the general response
We conducted a survey to investigate the society’s attitude towards and knowledge of cloning. The survey takers’ ages ranged from a 13-year-old boy to retired ladies and gentlemen and consisted of 41 people. All in all, we asked 9 simple questions regarding cloning and selected 7 questions for statistical record. We have covered a wide scope and discovered…
-- 2% of our survey takers were uninformed about cloning. The other 98%, however, were more informed than the 2%. We also went on to ask about their level of understanding of cloning and discovered…
-- …That only 2% of the survey takers claimed to have very extensive knowledge of cloning (we believe that the 2% constitutes of our General Paper tutor). The majority claims to have a good and adequate knowledge of cloning. 25% decided that they were not very informed on the subject, but had at least some sort of knowledge. After explaining the basics of Cloning to the 2% who never heard of cloning before (who, by the way, was the 13-year-old), we continued asking some questions that was relevant to the core of our project.
-- We found that the majority (63%) disapproved of cloning. These results came mainly from teenagers and people in their early twenties. Surprisingly, most of the survey takers from the older generation found the idea acceptable.
-- 57% of the people actually found that cloning was beneficial overall! Then again, some of them did not find themselves knowledgeable on the subject (which was why we did this project anyway).
-- While a fair number of them agreed that cloning was beneficial overall and that they approved of it, 42% did not like the idea of clones living around them. Only a mere 10% liked the idea and 10% didn’t really care much about clones and society. 19% found that it was fine though, and 19% didn’t really mind it.
-- For those which we asked to consider the possibilities of their own infertilities, 32% decided that they’d rather not have any children, while the rest of the majority, 56%, would choose to adopt over the 12% who chose cloning.
-- Finally, we understood that 73% felt that clones should be given the same human rights as us and that 27% thought otherwise. (Wonder why?)
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EFFECTS OF CLONING
The meat of the report
Clone wise
Sadly though unsurprisingly enough, a clone is likely harbor potential physical disorders. Apart from the fact that his birth mother will suffer high possibilities of multiple miscarriages, the child clone himself is extremely plausible to contract severe developmental abnormalities, from physical disabilities to serious genetic diseases, from birth till in the long run. How depressing can life get from the eyes of a thinking yet under-performing clone?
Psychologically, there is bound to be a certain level of degradation on the quality of parenting and family life from a clone’s point of view. There are numerous temptations for parents to seek excessive control over their children’s (clone’s) characteristics, to value them according to how well they meet overly detailed parental expectations and thus, undermining the general acceptance and openness that typify loving families! Growing up as a child and beyond under such stressful circumstances can certainly prove to be overwhelming, not to mention, mentally tiring. This type of psychological harm can cause a loss of identity and uniqueness in a child clone. In other words, whether having the same genome as another person will undermine that unique qualitative identity, still remains a controversial issue.
Whether it is a mistake to believe the crude genetic determinism – that one’s gene’s builds one’s fate -- what is more important in the case of the clone is one’s experience of freedom and ability to create a life for oneself or the extent to which one thinks his future is open and undetermined. A later clone might grant that he is not destined to follow his earlier twin’s footsteps, nevertheless, the earlier twin’s life would always haunt the later clone, standing as an undue influence on the latter’s life. Let us put ourselves in the clone’s shoes and walk around in his skin; life will never be the same again.
A clone may not get along well in the family in due course. These are concerns about the possibility of generating large numbers of people whose life choices are, exasperatingly, limited by their own constrained self-image or by the constraining expectations of parents. In other words, parenting (here), is depicted as a manufacturing company whose only aim is to ‘manufacture’ children according to expectations.
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Society VS the clones
Would clones qualify to be part of society, then?
And yet another question is raised. Can society ever accept clones? In our survey, y. Only 10% showed substantial evidence in their answers to accepting clones, compared to the 42% who expressed dislike on living with a clone in the same society. The rest? Apparently, they don’t really care much.
Indeed, as we consider the possible spectacular future Cloning may bring, we must also know that cloning may generate a new wave of discrimination that is much more serious than the racial discrimination we, as a society, took years to overcome (and yet have not completely succeeded). For which we introduce clones to our society, our group is more than confident to say that alienation of the clone will occur and the discriminating point of view for people to carry will then be: “YOU ARE NOT HUMAN.” And we do believe that the sound of it alone is belittling enough.
How about the concept of individuality, that “you are completely unique, because you are you”? More often than not, we have been told by mentors and teachers to embrace our uniqueness and individuality. Each person was one of a kind, each with their own matchless DNA, which would not be the case should cloning of a human succeed. There would be two people with the same DNA. Then where can we place our individuality on? To put it bluntly, we would be replaceable, no longer inimitable and distinctive as ourselves.
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Judicially speaking
(what has been done?)
Research on human genome and the resulting applications may, in future, help to improve health of individuals and of the human race. Yet, we have to ensure that these researches respect human dignity and individual rights. There are plenty of approaches towards the ethical aspect of the preambles of cloning and the event itself.
Internationally, there are two ethics committees, one governmental, UNESCO, and the other non-governmental, HUGO. Created to study the ethical, legal and social issues surrounding the human genetics, these organizations have yet to issue an explicit statement on cloning.
But thus far, the council of Europe (which is the central of 40 countries) adopted the convention for Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard To The Application of Biology and Medicine in Medical research on human beings in 1990. The council had stated in its preamble to Medical Research on Human Beings that “…medical research contrary to human dignity should never be carried out.”
The European Parliament had earlier issued in 1989 a statement that defined cloning as a crime. It was said that any attempt to perform cloning was to be considered a criminal offense, and the parliament officially “put an end” to cloning by making it legal in 1994.
The International Law Association in 1988 stated that cloning research was to be restricted to medical aids only, not the “creation of life”, taking into consideration of innate human pride for the clone. Similarly, the 93rd Inter-Parliamentary conference of 1996 mentioned “The indivisibility of the human body and the intangibility of the genetic heritage of the human species”. In the 196 charter on Sexual and Reproductive rights and access to “Safe and acceptable” reproduction technologies were mentioned without further definition! Which means that no one really knows what is “safe and acceptable”.
The Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992 covers that for any clinic or laboratory attempting to initiate pregnancies by somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning will be subjected to the federal government and the results of the experiments must be made known to the public. If the session is shown to be ineffective or dangerous for the tissue donor or resulting child, the operation will be closed down. Conduct or funding of any researches aimed at cloning humans are also restricted.
There are also a number of state laws in the US, which would restrict privately funded research too. Just yesterday (August 03, 2001), US president, George Bush, passed a law that banned all medical researches on human cloning.
Basically, from the first establishment to the last till date, all laws oppose cloning, the European councils being most open about it. None of them are willing to accept the failures of cloning.
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Ethically
There are many opposing groups against the cloning of human beings highlighting the ethical concerns.
Data suggests that cloning of human beings would be physically dangerous and there are other potential
risks in which we have limited information. They are cumulative nuclear mutations which may lead to cancer, deformities and arising of new diseases., premature aging of clones and risks of abnormal development. The opponents were also concern that cloning would undermine the autonomy and individuality of children, the internal experience of the clone. The clone may fell that they are living under shadow, which seems to have already been lived and played out by another. Also people will tend to expect the clones to be exactly the same as the origins. What will happen if the copy of Einstein shows no interest in science and copy of Lee Kwan Yew has no interest in politics?
Though there people who think that we should let individuals to decide whether to bear child through somatic cell nuclear transfer technology just as they can decide whether to use in vitro fertilization or not, others still bear the idea that a new live should be created with contributions of sex. Furthermore,
cloning does not fulfill the meaning and fulfillment of one’s own life but implies on controlling the nature and characteristics of a human being, which is immoral and unethical.
Every child should be wanted for itself yet, the idea of cloning defeat this statement since the child is deliberately being specified to develop in some way or another.
Cloning is seen as diminishing the value of human individuality and as violating basic norms of respect for human life and the integrity of human species. Hence, the wholeness, individuality, respect and sanctity of life will be questioned.
Cloning of human beings, if successful, will contradicts the idea of God who is supposed to be the
creator of human. Then what would the religions that hold utmost belief that God made all humans say to it? Also, there may be a great possibility of misuses and abuses of cloning which many feel that there is nothing we can do to prevent except applying laws which may not be very applicable since it is hard to track down whoever is misusing or abusing it since they may be non-governmental groups which works underground.
The New York Times had reported that a person named Randolf Wicker actually decided to seek a scientist to help him clone himself. This proves that legislation cannot assure that its citizen acts morally.
Most important of all, we think that one cannot presume the future clone consent to be a clone, even a healthy one. The clone though has the genes of the original, may not be able to think exactly like its original. As mentioned in the earlier paragraphs, the clone will be living in the shadow, which no human beings would want to. How many of us here are sure the clones will want to be clones even though it may be the original who wanted a clone of himself so as to carry on living and how different will the clone feel from the natural human being? The clone may even grow up with psychological problems, which we human beings have contributed to. Are we not playing God when we wanted to clone, regardless of animals or human beings? And do we have the right to do so?
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Economically
The more ludicrous of all this should be the commercialization of cloning. Previously, when vitro fertilization was first introduced, clinics sprung up all over the country of USA providing services of artificial birth to infertile couples. There was a huge demand for vitro-fertilization, and because the foundations of law for this aspect were not laid properly, patients who paid full faith to their doctors were betrayed by some of their underground doings.
A perfect example would be the usage of sperm. An infertile couple that decided to undergo vitro fertilization in hopes of a child that would at least be half their “own” requested for a sperm donor with specific physical requirements (most of which would constitute “good looking” elements such as blond hair, blue eyes and such) and is promised that by the operating doctor. The sperm donor is supposedly selected and the mother of the child undergoes transfer of her fertilized egg into her womb. After pregnancy, she gives birth to a healthy baby girl and after years, they realize that she looks oddly familiar…hey! Wait a minute! She looks just like the doctor that was in charge the mother’s pregnancy!
What happened in the case above was the doctor had used his own sperm, instead of whatever that was promised. On the way to maximize profits, the doctor takes the commission of the sperm donor for his own and “earns” the “extra” income. This violated the promise between the doctor and the patient then, but the doctor was not liable to legal charges because there was no law that stated his act as a crime then.
What is illustrated here is the level of deceit people would obtain in order to get more money. For some part, cloning itself has become an economic exploitation. Unknown to plenty, scientists all over the world are currently analyzing the compositions of the different DNA, filing patents for each new genome they discover and claiming its “marketing rights” to be their own. But the fact remains that for each genome patented, 1 out of 10 people are in possession of it. So how can it even qualify as property to be patented in the first place?
But perhaps it is already too late to consider that. After all, scientists are selling the genomes to various medical companies for huge sums of money. In fact, one research organization took liberty to sell a major medical company in the United States more genomes than there really was. What was once a gift of nature to man, be now the patented property of a money-minded company somewhere in the States.
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Conclusively
When all is said and done
After reviewing the possible effects and problems of cloning and weighing it against the pros of cloning, our group has come to a conclusion that it is not worth the price to even attempt to clone. Yes, indeed, cloning would open new doors to new worlds – but no one can be sure of what the future may bring. While the phrase “No pain No gain” still stands valid, we have asked ourselves whether or not the “gain” would come, and what if it doesn’t?
Because at this point of time, we have more than enough reason to say that cloning is not ready to take place in our society yet. Fundamentally, our society has plenty of problems that we have yet to find solutions to, and Cloning is in no way a solution, at the very least, to these problems. We can even rather confidently say that it would create more problems.
Indeed, cloning is a glorious prospect, but we should not be concentrating on that at the moment. The conclusion of this project is that cloning brings more harm than benefit, contrary to what the 43% who believed that cloning was beneficial overall thought. We must always take in account the possibility of failure.
After all, man is still not “God”.
We, however, find that medical research on cloning of human parts should not be banned. In fact, that aspect would be more feasible as the price of it would be much, much less than the cloning of a human (because when its about a human, it talks about the creation of life and the responsibility of it).
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The Bibliography
References and sources
Wade, Nicholas. (1998). The Science Times Book of Genetics. Lyons Press
Morton Jenkins. (Ed). (2001) Teach Yourself 101 Key Ideas: Genetics (Teach Yourself 101 Key Ideas). Hodder & Stoughton
Gregory E. Pence. (Ed). (1998) Flesh of my Flesh: the Ethics of cloning humans. Rowman & Littlefield Publishing
Roger Gosden. (1999). Designing Babies: The Brave New World Of Reproduction. W H Freeman & Co
Dean H. Hamer, Peter Copeland. (1999). Living With Our Genes : Why They Matter More Than You Think. Anchor
Books
V. E. A. Russo, David Cove, Enzo Russo. (1998). Genetic Engineering : Dreams and Nightmares. Oxford Univ Press
Lori B. Andrews. (2000). The Clone Age : Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology. Henry Holt
Gina Bari Kolata. (1999). Clone the Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead : The Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead. William Morrow & Company
Leon R. Kass, James Q. Wilson. (1998). The Ethics of Human Cloning. AEI Press
Straits Times, Singapore. (2001) Scientists issue new warning over cloning [On-Line]. Available: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/health/story/0,3324,56006,00.html (10/7/01)
DNApatent.com (1999) What is genetic engineering? [On-Line]. Available: http://www.dnapatent.com/science/index.html (10/7/01)
Straits Times, Singapore. (2001) US House votes to ban all human cloning [On-Line]. Available: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/breakingnews/story/0,1895,61221,00.html (1/8/01)
Erika Check. (2000). Cloning Pigs for Parts. Newsweek Magazine, p.65
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*whew...*
daisyy