Thoughts on cloning?

Question

For a biology project, I need to research the public opinion on cloning.

Are you against it or for it? Please explain your answer. What do you think about whole-body cloning vs. organ cloning? If human cloning was made legal in the United States, what kind of laws should regulate it? How far should cloning go?

thanks for helping out. :D

Answer 1

Cloning is a tricky topic. We clone stuff all the time from microscopic organisms for things like antivenoms, vaccines and innoculations. But the higher the organism is on the food chain, the more complex it becomes, and the more humans start to feel concious about cloning it.

I personally think that medical cloning is fine, as long as you are taking stem cells to grow something useful on a petri dish (eg skin). Other larger organs such as a heart, liver or lung cannot be grown on a dish. Yes the dish will grow the cells that make up the organ, but its main functionallity comes from its structure (such as heart chambers, alveoli in lungs, caniculi in liver), not only from which cells it consits of.

If you wanted solid organ cloning, one would have to clone beings to harvest them, and thats where i draw the line.

Im a believer that there is a god, and that he ultimately has the power to give and take away life. It is not in our power that we should "grow" people like a farm just to harvest their inners and treat them like some farm animal.

Growing on a petri dish from stem cells for such things as skin graphs, way to go.
Growing larger more complex organs in "full body hosts", shouldn't be done.

Answer 2

I think everyone wants to live forever, but the organ cloning would be expensive, so only the wealthy could afford it, health insurances companies would try and wiggle out of it, and if public healthcare passes, all medical treatment will increase in price. So it defintely would be expensive, is it worth it? If it was my liver or kidney, DEFINTELY. The problem is the aging issue, that the cloned cells at present decay faster, clone an 80 year old man's kidney, and you'll get an 80 year old kidney. The trick would be to re-program the cellular "biological clock" and if you could do that, why not do it to the whole body? As far as I know they believe there is a electro chemical signal from the brain controlling aging, but there is belief it could be in the basic DNA of the cells themselves. If they ever finish deciphering DNA maybe they will answer this. But I think chopping and splicing genes without knowing what all the parts of it does and interacts with the whole, is a bit of Dr. Franken-stein. Morally, I'm not opposed to it, it's another tool to improve our lives, if we wanted to be fatalistic, we wouldn't need firemen, police, coast guard, soldiers, etc. because we could say "whatever happens was meant to happen". I believe morally, we are here to help each other, and if cloning organs helps saves lives, I'm all for it. Cloning people, I'm not sure about. Suppose we cloned Ronald Reagan? (that will scare the liberals). Suppose someone was disatisfied with Iran's president and went and cloned Hitler? But you are not bringing back the "spirit" or "intellect", you will just have teh same emotional/intelligence qoutient, but to some degree it is the enviroment and events causing stress that shape a person. And I'm not sure genetically cloning is good because with genetically modified plants, they need to keep original species around to produce future clones. If we are to assume it will follow along the "Multiplicity" Micheal Keaton movie, thos ecopies of copies could make things kind of weird (or more than normal). I can see where a person who loses a loved one tragically young in life would want to replace them, but it would not be the same person, just a twin. But if I could, I would have my dog cloned.

Answer 3

Whole body cloning wont work.
I have heard of cloned pet -cats to be more specific - that didnt even have the same colour patterns. I am sure genes will produce, even when cloned, certain unpredictable results, making a perfect copy impossible in a complex organism like a human being.
Despite of that, the cloning procedure would be extremely expensive and only be used for the purpose of producing clones of "rich" people, making the world an even more evil place to be living in.

Answer 4

Physicians from the American Medical Association and scientists with the American Association for the Advancement of Science have issued formal public statements advising against human reproductive cloning. Currently, the U.S. Congress is considering the passage of legislation that could ban human cloning. See the Policy and Legislation links below.

Due to the inefficiency of animal cloning (only about 1 or 2 viable offspring for every 100 experiments) and the lack of understanding about reproductive cloning, many scientists and physicians strongly believe that it would be unethical to attempt to clone humans. Not only do most attempts to clone mammals fail, about 30% of clones born alive are affected with "large offspring syndrome" and other debilitating conditions. Several cloned animals have died prematurely from infections and other complications. The same problems would be expected in human cloning. In addition, scientists do not know how cloning could impact mental development. While factors such as intellect and mood may not be as important for a cow or a mouse, they are crucial for the development of healthy humans. With so many unknowns concerning reproductive cloning, the attempt to clone humans at this time is considered potentially dangerous and ethically irresponsible.

Answer 5

I think that cloning a human being is a bad idea. However organ cloning could be a useful tool to doctors and surgeons. The moral and statistical implications of full human body cloning will never allow it to become common practice in my opinion. Furthermore, animal cloning is probably a bad idea because we still don't know if these animals or their agricultural byproducts are safe for human consumption. Who knows what kind of gene mutations could occur if these animals or humans were allowed to reproduce, even among themselves.

Answer 6

I think that if cloning is done for the benefit of society, then it should be all right. It doesn't matter whether it's whole body or just organs. Cloning is still cloning. ^__^ What kind of laws? I think that as long as it is within the human rights law, it should be okay. ^_^

Answer 7

I am 100% for organ cloning. It could save hundreds of thousands of lives a year. Whole body cloning should not be legal, I cannot see any medical reason for it, and there are lots of bad ways it can be used

Answer 8

Well, for and against. I can't say I like the idea of cloning animals and people, but using it for organs to save peoples lives is a good idea

Answer 9

i'm against it. how would you clone an organ without a body? mice? (nip/tuck) so now, you've got to breed mice, employ people to care for them in all aspects. buy the specially made equipment to provide the super sterile enviroment they would need to survive etc etc etc... the price would be enormous. and for what? so we can add playing God to our list of daily duties? it was written, the day we were born, our outcome. we should not be allowed to clone people. while it may look human and appear in all ways to be human, it won't have a soul. you will never be able to make those. if it doesnt have a soul, will it have a conscious???

Answer 10

I would support organ cloning, because hospitals need organs. But I would not support human/full body cloning.