To Clone or Not to Clone?
In February 1997, when Dr. Ian Wilmut and his team of scientists in Scotland astonished the
world by announcing that they had successfully cloned a sheep, it sparked an international
debate. Since the invention of Dolly, scientists have been faced with the imminent technology to
clone human beings. This has raised questions about what it means to be human and what
restrictions should be placed on scientific research.
Scientists should use methods of cloning of individual human cells because it provides
benefits of curing diseases and regrowth of damaged organs or tissues. However, scientists
should not clone whole adult human beings because of the violation of moral, ethical, and
religious concerns. Hence, scientists must separate making spare body parts from making whole
Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia defines cloning as:
The production of duplicate copies of genetic material, cells, or entire multicellular living
organisms. The copies are referred to as clones. Cloning occurs naturally and is also
engineered by human beings. The possibility that people might be cloned from the cells of
a single adult human had long been a subject primarily of fantasy and science fiction but
became very definite at the end of the 20th century. This possibility stemmed from the
successful cloning of lower mammals, leaving little doubt in many scientists' minds that
humans could and would one day be cloned. (1)
In nature, and even in the lives of humans, clones are present. A clone is an organism that
has the same genetic information as another organism. Cloning occurs with all plants, some
insects, algae, and even humans. Identical twins are clones of each other. They have the same
exact genetic information due to t...