Human Cloning

What Is It?

It is a form of cloning which is designed to result in a copy of a human being or a human body part.
Although genes are known to have largely influenced behavior and cognition, the term "genetically identical" does not necessarily mean exactly the same.
Identical twins, despite being natural human clones with identical DNA, are separate people, having gone through separate experiences with different personalities.
However, the relationship between an "original" and a clone is rather like that between identical twins raised apart; they share all the same DNA, but little of the same environment.

The Process

Somatic cell nuclear transfer begins when doctors take the egg from a female donor and remove its nucleus, creating an 'enucleated egg'.
A cell, which contains the required DNA, is taken from the person who is being cloned.
The enucleated egg is then fused together with the cloning cell using electricity.
This creates an embryo, which is implanted into a surrogate mother through in vitro fertilization.
If the procedure is proven successful, the surrogate mother will deliver a cloned baby.
However, the success rate for this type of procedure is minimal, working in only one or two out of every one hundred embryos.

Successful Cloning

Dolly, a female sheep was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell.
She was cloned at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland,where she lived until her death at the age of six.
Her birth was announced on February 22, 1997 originally given a code name of "6LL3".
The technique that was made famous by her birth is somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Dolly (July 5, 1996 - February 14, 2003)

Controversy

Stem cell research has become a large controversy within the general public as well as the political spectrum and scientific/religious communities.
Many issues regarding human cloning have become known within countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia which have made attempts or have done research in reproductive cloning.
Countries like Australia prohibited human cloning in 2006.
The greatest moral objection against human cloning is depicted through the claim that individuals may be unnecessarily harmed (during experiment/after birth)
Given the immature technology of human cloning, safety issues may arise.
Secondly, human cloning may violate two fundamental principles which human rights are based on: - principle of equality between individuals - principle of non-discrimination.

Lastly, having certain expectations for cloned children may exert significant amounts of psychological pressure upon them.

My Opinion

I believe that human cloning should be banned no matter the circumstance as therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning are exactly the same
Both utilize the exact same process and both end up with the same result: a newly cloned human being.
Human cloning is also incredibly dangerous. It is estimated that between 95 and 98 percent of cloning experiments have failed.
Even if the experiment proved successful, cloned human beings also run the risk of having severe genetic abnormalities.
Children cloned from adult DNA would technically already have old and used genes, which may become the basis for mental and physical problems.
From an unethical standpoint, since cloning require the use of human embryos, this would mean the killing of innocent unborn children.
There is also the possibility of compromising individuality.
For instance, if everyone decided cloning was morally correct, there would be a surplus of cloned fetuses.
This means that, someone might try to create a superior race by cloning.
However it would fail, because cloned people would have children with non-cloned people, and resulting genetic hybrids would soon be normalized.