Human Cloning

The birth of Dolly the clone

Dolly’s entrance to this world marked a remarkable turning point in biological science. Her “quiet birth”, with no photographs or champagne, was on 5th July 1996 (Kolata, 1998, p. 2). Even her creator Ian Wilmut was not present then.

The first cloned sheep was a breakthrough to scientists, for many saw the benefits lying ahead for humankind. The process Dolly was created from was nuclear transfer, where “the nucleus of a mature but unfertilized egg is removed and replaced with a nucleus obtained from a specialized cell of an adult (or fetal) organism (in Dolly’s case, the donor nucleus came from mammary gland epithelium)” (Kass & Wilson, 1998, p. 13).

With this discovery, the possibility of human cloning was speculated. Many governments were eager to ban human cloning. An anti-cloning treaty has been signed among nineteen European nations, and Bill Clinton has imposed a five-year moratorium on human cloning. These are merely two examples of many other countries who have banned human cloning and its research. This legislation is a threat to the development of research of our human body.

To ban the research “will just push it underground and into unscrupulous hands” states Raju Chellam in the article “Clone research – dangerous to wish it away”, which appeared in The Business Times, October 1, 1999. Mankind is still in search of many answers and some of which may be found in the research of human cloning.

Thus human cloning and its technology is necessary and should be continued because the cures to diseases may be found, the infertility problem may be solved, and more geniuses may be produced.

II. Curing diseases

High hopes in developing “new cures and treatments for serious and unmet medical needs” have been driven by the cloning technology (Milgram & Rantala, 1999, p. 215).

Some diseases are inborn and cause permanent defects on an individual. This suffering may end soon if cloning is permitted....