Cloning: the process and ethics of it

                                                                                                                                                       

Human cloning diagram from
science.howstuffworks.com

Once cloning was a far off idea but now that idea is closer to being a possibility than it was before. Cloning is the process of creating an exact copy of someone using only their DNA. The process isn't that hard to understand either. First you would need to take an egg cell from a donor and remove the nucleus that contains 23 chromosomes and discard it. You then take a skin cell that contains 46 chromosomes from the person you will be cloning and remove the nucleus. You then insert the 46 chromosomes nucleus and insert it into the egg cell. The egg cell will then be placed into the donors womb and will eventually grow into an exact physical copy of the person you are cloning.



The ethics of cloning
Cloning can cause a lot of mixed feelings and is very easy to debate about. Because you are essentially creating a human who also looks and feels emotions just like we do. Below are some questions that will get you thinking about the ethics of cloning.

Should we use cloning to resurrect extinct and endangered animals? 
The problem with cloning extinct and endangered animals is that we have to think about why the animals are extinct/endangered. Is it because of natural selection? Is it because of humans? I personally think it's a good idea but at the same time it's not. A big question is would we be picking and choosing what animals we resurrect? If we are then we begin to be playing god that never ends well.

We should clone plants and animals that produce the most. This could end world hunger
First off don't we already do this? Usually on things such as farms, farmers will select plants and animals that are doing the best to reproduce. I personally agree because we already sort of do this.

Should we use cloning to replicate a child dying of terminal disease?
If they are replicated exactly wouldn't the kid just get the disease again? Not only is it that but there also is just something off putting. Knowing your child die and that the one you're with now is just a copy is just sort of off putting. I don't strongly disagree but I do somewhat.

Do you think cloning should be used for staffing our armies. If they are cloned then they wouldn't have parents. 
The clone would still have to be raised by someone, this means they would learn about emotions and still form relationships with people. Unless of course they train them to be child soldiers in the movies but the way they do that is a little inhumane.

We should use cloning technology to bring back famous/influential people back to life (i.e Newton, Einstein, Shakespeare, ect).
This is a hard no for me. They would have to be brought up in today's world which is very different from the time they were brought up. They might not end up doing anything successful. We know Einstein also played violin so what if he decided he wanted to be a violinist in today's age. Or Shakespeare who also was a painter, what if he decide to paint instead of write? Then the debate about if intelligence is in your DNA comes into play but we won't go into that.

Examples of cloning

So far scientists have only been able to clone animals such as Dolly the sheep who was the first successful clone of a mammal. Scientists have also been able to clone mice, a gaur, and a cat among other animals. 

Dolly the sheep's clones