IS CLONING ETHICAL? By Alice
Ever since 5th July 1996 after Dolly the sheep was the first animal to be successfully cloned, the ethics of cloning has become a widely debated topic. There are three types of cloning: therapeutic cloning, reproductive cloning and commercial cloning. Therapeutic cloning is when a human egg cell comes from a donor which has the nucleus removed and then discarded. The nucleus is transferred from the donor egg cell, where scientists stimulate the cell to divide. This then develops into an embryo, where stem cells are created. Stem cells from the embryo are taken and used to treat diseases. Reproductive cloning is used to create an animal that is genetically identical to a donor animal, through nucleus transfer. This embryo is then placed into the uterus of the surrogate animal, where the embryo can develop and become an animal. Commercial cloning is used to clone domestic animals. This can cost around £25,000-£40,000 depending on the animal. Therapeutic cloning is legal in the United Kingdom, United States and Turkey, but is banned in Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands and other countries. In addition to this, Ireland, Norway and Denmark and Ecuador have limited research of the use of human embryonic stem cells. Despite being banned in many countries, therapeutic cloning has many benefits. It can be used to treat cancer and has the potential to create organs. Currently, people have to wait for a potential organ donor and some organs, such as kidneys, have to have a donor with a matching blood group. If an organ is donated and there is a matching blood group, there is a 10-15% chance that the body will reject the organ. Another advantage to therapeutic cloning is the possibility to treat genetic diseases. An undifferentiated stem cell can be used to alter DNA if there is a risk of genetic diseases. The DNA in the nucleus would be altered and the cell would be corrected so that the cell would undergo mitosis and reproduce genetically identical copies of the corrected DNA.
