Why do some people not like cloning?

Answer 1

Answer

There are a both practical and moral opposition to cloning, but, for the most part arguments are theoretical since cloning is in its infancy right now. Cloning is one step beyond cross breeding, designer breeding, and genetic modification; all of which have their benefits and their pitfalls.

I personally think that a mutt is the best breed of dog, however there is a huge industry in pure breeding and designer breeding dogs. The benefits of designer breeding is that you get a dog breed that is expert in a task valuable to humans such as hunting, herding, or tracking. You can also get cute, adorable, or very intelligent dogs with personality traits that please humans a great deal; but you also get dogs prone to an endless variety of genetic disorders and diseases. And because humans have as many villainous traits as favorable traits, there are always the unscrupulous breeders that produce sick and damaged animals and sell some of those to the unsuspecting consumer only for the animal to suffer and die. This only briefly covers dog breeding, there are also a host of plant and animal breeders who are out there tinkering with nature.

There are too many pros and cons to cross breeding and genetic alteration to cover to make the point here. The example studies in the UK showing a 50% increase in allergic reactions to soy ingredients in just one year after the US increased imports of soy to the UK. Products sold to the public that are genetically altered or contain genetically ingredients are not labeled and the individual consumer of that product is at the mercy of producers. This includes manufactured food products as well as fresh foods. A vegetarian sitting down to a nice fresh salad runs the risk of suffering anaphylaxis due to a shellfish allergy. An extreme example but within the possibility of the current genetic alteration of our foods. A less dangerous but more widespread problem are changes like tomatoes and chicken whose taste bears little resemblance to the real thing and are very unappetizing to people who once liked tomatoes or chicken.

I realize that none of this is actually about cloning. That is because cloning doesn't have enough history, and the reasons that people don't like the idea of cloning is because there is no way to know what the negative consequences will be. The history of cross breeding and genetic alteration gives them a clue to what can and will go wrong and how unscrupulous people will misuse cloning for their own personal ends.

Answer

In 1994 I was taking a Biology class in high school. We watched a video of cloning frogs. The process was quite simple. It involved taking an egg cell and any other cell from the frog. They would take the nucleus out of the cell of the egg and the nucleus out of the other cell. The other cell has all the DNA needed to form a healthy frog, so that nucleus would go into the egg cell. If the cell survived this process it would heal and start multiplying. About 1 out of every 100 cells would survive. This process has 2 names, cloning or twining. In essence it's creating a twin of the first.

The process used with the frogs is no different then what they used with sheep or even if they clone people. What is the same is ONLY the DNA. This creates a whole new individual. If it is a person cloned, they have to grow up just like anybody else, learn just like everybody else, and they would even have there own personality. So if a mass murderer or rapist or Obama would be cloned, they would end up nothing like the original. They would be just as different (if not more different because the age difference) as identical twins are. They would be able to make there own decisions and learn from older clones mistakes and achievements. It would not be much different then having a much younger sibling.

So then, why are people against it? Some people believe in the sacredness of life and think that human genes should not be tampered with. A question that can be raised is, when the process is complete, is a human created even if it dies? If one is against abortion, then they should be against cloning for the same reasons. It's creating a life that has no chance of survival. They could be creating hundreds of humans with no chance of living. So the main reason people are most likely to be against it should be for moral reasons. There are those that are against it for fear of creating "evil" people, but that is an ignorant reason for being against it. To be for it or against it, one should do their research, figure out exactly what it is and base their opinion on the facts of what it is and how it's done.