This is a question that has been around for decades, since the first animal was cloned and even since it became an idea. Cloning has been seen as having major potential for scientific discovery, growth, and advancement, but the question has always been, is it ethical? The first animal was cloned in 1958 by a british biologist John Gurdon. He managed to clone a sheep named Dolly using a somatic nuclear cell transfer, which is still the moethod used today. Ever since then, cloning has been a growing "business" in biology. Today, many more animals have been cloned, sheep, dogs, horses, donkeys, cats, etc.. But over time, the government has put on many limitations on cloning. Some of those being what we can clone, how often we can clone, what procedures have to be taken within the cloning process, and many more.
Animal cloning is a process that takes long time, the steps in this process include, taking a skin sample from the animal that will be cloned, from there you take a somatic cell out of that sample and insert it into an unfertilized egg which was taken from a female, the nucleus from that cell is then insterted into the unfertilized egg. From there, the egg is then stimulated into dividing which is then placed into the uterus of a surrogate mother. The mother then carries this egg until birth, which is when the cloned animal is birthed. problems surrounding this is that there is, at the moment, a relatively low success rate, many of these manipulated eggs don't make it to birth, and die before the birthing process. Also, the ethical concerns is that the babies, if birthed, often show many health concerns and die early. Only a small few are birthed healthy and live as long as normal.
These points combined brings up the question, is cloning animals ethical? with a low success rate and many health problems throughout their life, is that worth advancement in science, is it worth the advances it could bring? Cloning has been a highly debated topic throughout the years and still is. Concerns have risen for the well being of those who do the cloning and for the animals themselves, cloning does hurt only the cloned embryo if failed, it can also create complications for the mother and with that, all of the other embryo the mother is carrying. Some think it is ethical for the advances it could bring, your could bring your pets back, you could in theory, even bring family members back. There are also those who think it is not ethical at all, putting an innocent baby at risk for an experiment? Putting the mother at risk for the same reason, even all the other embryos she is also carrying? these are all questions that have come up in this debate.
Do you think cloning is ethical?
Do you think that the kinds of animals cloned should be different?
What do you dislike/ like about the idea of cloning or the cloning process?
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