Cloning (Speech I wrote up for School)

Thought I would just post my speech here, and see what you think. This is extremely opinionated, as it is a highly debated topic and want not. I know this has been beaten to death with a stick, but it may be an interesting read.



Cloning


Cloning is the creation of a complete duplicate of an original organism. Cloning a human has been a dream for a long time; however, it has yet to be accomplished because of the complexity of the venture. In nature, clones are quite common. Twins are a prime example, considering that the twins (clones) are created during natural reproduction. Cloning a human or any other mammal is not a needed procedure, and to be quite frank I think scientists are wasting there time on something that could be worthwhile. Instead of wasting time, on trying to clone a complete human being, they should put all the research into cures for terminal illnesses. At least this benefits a larger portion of society.


Through the course of history there has been numerous successful clones produced, none of which were humans. Some organisms include a tadpole, a carp, Dolly the sheep, and most recently Snuppy an Afghan hound. Although scientists did produce these clones successful, each clone took thousands of tries. There were also deformities discovered as time passed. When Dolly was produced in 1997, it appeared to scientists and doctors a like that her health condition was normal; however, in 2003 this healthy appearance changed. Scientists noticed that the telomeres on her DNA were abnormally long. This subjected Dolly to accelerated aging, which further led to arthritis, and later to lung cancer. The lung cancer led to Dollys demise. Why are scientists destroying potential offspring to try and clone a human being when they can not even correctly clone a sheep?

Ethically cloning is debated on many different levels as being unethical. Many Christian denominations of consider the time of conception, when the sperm meets the egg to be the start of human life. However, Libertarians believe that a fertilized ovum does not constitute a human being. Christian followers also consider a clone to contain no soul, seeing in their minds was born outside of Gods parameters.

What if cloning became a common practice? For example, a sterile couple proceed with a cloning procedure. The procedure seems to go successful, from both the scientists opinion and the couples. When the baby is born, nine months later, everything goes fine, for a couple of months. Eventually the couple notice the baby is in pain, so they decide to bring the new born to the hospital. The baby is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Although this is a hypothetical example, it could possibly happen, due to the lack of research. Much more research should go into the entire process before scientists decide to mess with human life, although they should not be tempering to begin with.

Complete human replication is not needed in society. Instead scientists should spend there time researching cures for terminal illnesses, such as cancer. If human cloning is going to be used for sterile couples there really is not need, seeing you can spend less money on a cheaper and more stable process.