What exactly is cloning? Well, cloning is making an exact copy of an animal or plant, or exact copies of certain cells of plants and animals. Cloning can be very dangerous and there are many risks involved, since we are not really acquainted with the subject. Some scientists on the other hand, think cloning is a good idea since its scientific research can lead to important discoveries. Human cloning research discoveries could help people live healthier, more productive lives. So, although there are advantages that could come with cloning, it should not be done because of the dangers and the unfamiliarity to it. In this essay I will discuss the background information about cloning, why we should clone, why we should not clone, why it is unethical and more.
             To start off with, there are three basic methods of cloning: separating the embryo and making twins with the same genetic make-up, taking a cell from a fertilized ovum when the cell begins too spilt and replaces it in another female's ovum, or nuclear transplantation. Some animal's scientists have attempted to clone include sheep, goats, mice, and cows.
             The famous cloning of an adult ewe, whose offspring was named Dolly, was accomplished through the second method by Dr. Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland. Dolly was "born" by taking genetic material from cells in the mammary glands of a six-year-old ewe and putting the acquired cells into an unfertilized ovum. Finally, after 277 attempts, researchers eventually produced only 29 embryos that survived longer than six days, of these 29, all died before birth except for Dolly.
             In the March 1998 issue of Time, J. Madeleine Nash talks about how a clone of an adult ewe is "born" from nuclear transplantation. First, a cell is taken from the udder of an adult ewe and placed in a culture with very low concentrations of nutrients. As the cells starve, they stop dividing and switch off their active ...