Economic, Health, Environmental and Ethical Trade-offs in Cloning - Essay Example

Economic, Health, Environmental and Ethical Trade-offs in Cloning al Affiliation Introduction Human cloning is the creating a human being that shares genetic information with the person donating the implanted nucleus through the scientific application of somatic nuclear transfer technology. There are different types of processes of cloning such as fission, fusion, cutting of embryos and by nuclear transfer. The different types of cloning are gene cloning, reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning. Embryo cloning is a medical technique which produces monozygotic twins. One or more cells are removed from fertilized embryo and develop into one or more duplicate embryos creating twins or triplets with duplicate DNAs. Successful differentiation of somatic cell lineages into various types can be done through nuclear transfer technology (Cibelli, 2002). Cloning has been possible before; in the 1960s, frogs were cloned even before the introduction in-vitro fertilization, frogs were cloned successfully. A sheep named Dolly was produced in the Roslin Institute in Scotland in 1996. This was done by sucking a nucleus of an unfertilized egg and was replaced by genetic material from the cell of a donor animal. This sparked a lot of ethical concerns worldwide. Over the decades, genetics has been rapidly advancing and has been faced by different beliefs from religious, moral, political and ethical perspective. Legislation was made to ban human cloning and it was opposed by many medical organizations, the biotechnology industry and scientists. Thereafter, scientists have been able to clone cows, goats and other mammals from adult cells. Human cloning as also become a subject for mainstream scientists as they believe this could enable them learn more about genetic diseases, develop therapeutic treatments, produce tissues for transplant and assist in gene therapy. There are numerous debates as to whether human cloning has advantages or disadvantages. Human cloning has been divided into therapeutic cloning in which a human embryo is used to produce replacement cells such as blood cells, neurons to provide a cure for the DNA donor, and reproductive cloning where a human embryo is cloned so as to implant it in a womb to develop into a human being. Different countries have different regulations in regard to cloning. Some allow both types of cloning while others permit therapeutic cloning. In some countries such as China, therapeutic cloning is being explored with immense funding from the government. Scientists in the UK are also permitted to generate new embryonic cell lines from therapeutic approach. In the United States, there is no law against therapeutic cloning. However, there is no funding for further research on the embryonic stem cells. In South Africa for instance, both reproductive and therapeutic cloning are prohibited. There are several methods used in cloning. Somatic cell nuclear transfer is when the nucleus of a somatic cell is taken from donor and transplanted into a host egg cell which is void of genetic material. A micropipette is then used to transfer the material into the host oocyte and the somatic cell. An electric current is used to fuse the somatic cell genetic material with the egg. Another method used is induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), whereby in a specific adult cell a specific set of genes are introduced. This process is unstable and could have limitations to human beings. Health trade-offs There are potential benefits of human cloning therefore it is necessary to consider before banning procedures that may hinder progress to this research. Human cloning may have positive impacts on health depending on what the outcome was intended for. First, cloning can solve reproductive health issues such as infertility. Human cloning could provide a solution to couples who undergo painful emotional and physical procedures to have a chance of having children. Twinning, for instance is a form of cloning where an embryo is dissected to form twins. Second, human cloning technology can be used to treat cardiac related problems. Healthy heart cells of heart attack victims can be cloned and injected into the areas of the heart that have been damaged therefore treating the condition. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in industrialized countries. Damaged tissues and organs such as brain cells of brain damaged, burn skin and spinal cord cells for quadriplegics can be replaced by growing embryonic stem cells. This means human cloning can make conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative diseases can be cured. Human cloning is an answer to defective gene disorder. Tay-Sachs disease for instance could be prevented by using cloning to ensure that the child does not express the gene disorder. The technology can be used to clone liver and kidneys for transplants (Lauritzen, 2001). However, the health risks associated with human cloning. The greatest risk presented by human cloning is that the intelligence development in the clones is unknown. There is also fear of premature aging since an older cell is used to create a human clone; it is possible that the imprinted age could be placed on the developing embryo. A clone is a twin of a person no matter the age therefore the sense of individuality is reduced. The success rate is also low, since most cloned mammals derived by nuclear transfer die during gestation and those that survive to birth frequently have a large offspring syndrome, a neonatal phenotype characterized by respiratory and metabolic abnormalities and an enlarged, dysfunctional placenta (Jaenisch, 2004). In addition, there are compromised immune functions such as short lives and high rates of growth of tumor. The procedure also requires a large amount of human eggs are required. Providing the eggs is both painful and dangerous. There is also a risk of the clone becoming larger than average at birth which can be dangerous to the mother. Other risks include tumors due to instability of the embryonic stem cells and genetic defects. Economic trade-offs There are economic trade-offs of human cloning since it has implications on long run distribution of skills and income. Human cloning has a potential of distribution of abilities in the society. People with high ability will be produced more frequently than in a society with no cloning. There is fear of creating segregation within the human community since the perfected clones may be treated highly compared to naturally made humans. Human cloning can lead to elimination of low ability individuals from the population causing the distribution of ability to a mass of highest type of ability. There is certainty that there will be subjugation of the weak members of the society. The cloned child may be affected psychologically due to expectations and comparison by the parents. Parents may have unrealistic expectations about the characteristics of the cloned children and pressure them to be something they are not. Human cloning can serve as an investment. As much as clones may be granted human rights, they may be treated as products therefore are patented. The firm could have property rights over the genome of the clones. The people in charge of putting up the resources needed to produce the clone could force it in the highest return occupation and reap all the returns. Cloning has been thought to cause the children to be commodities since the parents will have to pay the egg donors, doctors and laboratories. The society would therefore regard children as products traded on the market. There is also a possibility of information retention where a cloning firm could buy some DNA from top ability individual and produce clones in hope of selling them valuable information about the model and this information could be verifiable by any potential employer. By withholding information about the model’s specific talent, a firm is able to appropriate part of the clone’s labor income. The specificity of a clone could create rent to companies. For instance, if a clone’s specific talent is complementary to some form of capital, and if the owner of such capital may bar competitors from accumulating it, they will be able to extract part of the return to the clone’s talent (Saint-Paul, 2005). In contrast, human cloning will not be a profitable investment since the payoff will take a long time. Profitability from cloning will arise depend on how income distribution will evolve considering that the estimated cost of human cloning is high. Ethical trade-offs There are ethical trade-offs that also arise from human cloning. Questions arise as to what makes human cloning morally acceptable or wrong. Ethical beliefs are basically drawn from religious beliefs as human cloning is banned in some religious groups who criticize the act as ‘playing God’, restricted in some and also accepted by others (Cole-Turner, 1997). In the cloning debate, it is argued that reproduction is the sole responsibility of God and when people take it upon themselves to create new individuals; they are acting against the divine domain. Media has a big role in displaying this common objection. Cloning has drawn a lot of disapproval as different people have different ideas about how far humanity should use technology to expand our capabilities. The ethical issues surrounding the reproductive cloning include ‘commodification’, safety and identity. The embryo’s moral status and relief of suffering arise from therapeutic cloning (Johnson, 2011). The first reason why human cloning has brought a lot of debate is that it seems to be a threat to our uniqueness as individuals. Every human being is genetically unique. Cloning will produce humans who are a replica rather than a new genetic combination of two parents (MacKinnon, 2000). There are fears that the cloned children will have difficulty with their identities because each of them with their identities because each will be genetically identical to s human being. Cloning has been thought to violate human dignity. That is, cloning might lead to a rise in human suffering if parents viewed their children as products. It has been portrayed that human clones lack individuality. This is based on the idea that a human clone is a copy of the person who donated the nuclear DNA for the procedure. The second reason is that human clones could destroy the human species. There are fears that overpopulation of the earth by human clones could lead to pollution, depletion of natural resources and environmental disaster. It is believed that humanity could be vulnerable to disease due to reduction in genetic diversity. There are also fears that current strain of humanity could be made obsolete by programs of eugenics and genetic engineering (Sherlock, 2002). There is fear that cloning to produce children would not be safe and that attempts to produce a cloned child would be unethical. This is from the reason that the current scientific information indicated that this technique was not safe in humans. Other concerns include complicated familial relationship, straining the social ties between them. Genetic relationship to one parent might produce special difficulties for family life. The status of embryonic stem cells is the core of opposition to therapeutic cloning (Johnson, 2006). I support human cloning since the pros are greater than the cons. If the legislation would be revised, restricted human cloning will serve potential benefits to the society. The mortality rates would be decreased by the fact that health would be improved. The major benefits are health trade-offs that will capacitate the quality of life in human beings. The use of cloning to produce children can be argued as a right of human freedom. In my point of view, the existence of moral values is so as to adjudicate conflicts between people. They moral values are put in place so that human can get along peacefully. If no human conflicts arise from human cloning, why not permit the process? Since human cloning can be used to produce children in infertile couples, it will relieve the pain of the procedures of trying to get children. Cloning can be used to produce children who have died suddenly and parents cannot bear the loss considering the emotional and financial input. It must be noted that human cloning produces embryos that develop into normal people and is not reanimation of dead matter (Macintosh, 2005).The media has also led to the negative perception of human cloning by only displaying only one side of the debate. It is important that both the positive and negative implications so that the society can weigh out the options and make the right choice regarding the decision. The perspective of human dignity in ethics, questions such as whose dignity is being attacked and how? Furthermore, in identical genetic, the clones will experience separate experiences from the humans and may have antagonistic personalities, since even identical twins grow to be different from each other due to their environment. Therapeutic cloning should be advocated for in order to generate organs and tissues to treat patients who cannot obtain transplants, starving off the effects of aging, and avoid the need of immunosuppressive drugs. We should admit that even if human cloning is banned, there are some people who are willing to go to great depths to practice illegally (Jensen, 2014). If the safety of human cloning is improved, the arguments against the technology in reproductive medicine would make a turn since using it in the current imperfect technology would exploit the vulnerable people who are desperate for it. If more research is done on human cloning, there are more potential benefits that could arise. Risks from cloning are majorly will mainly arise from how human beings will use the technology therefore it should be restricted. References Cibelli, J. B. (2002). Principles of cloning. Amsterdam: Academic Press. Cole-Turner, R. (1997). Human cloning: Religious responses. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press. Jaenisch, R. (2004). Human cloning-The Science and Ethics of Nuclear Transplantation. Massachusetts. Johnson, A. (2011). Human cloning. Congressional Research Service. Lauritzen, P. (2001). Cloning and the future of human embryo research. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press. Macintosh, K. L. (2005). Illegal beings: Human clones and the Law. Cambridge University Press MacKinnon, B. (2000). Human cloning: Science, ethics, and public policy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Saint-Paul, G. (2005). Economic aspects of human cloning and reprogenetics. Université de Toulouse I and CEPR. Sherlock, R., & Morrey, J. D. (2002). Ethical issues in biotechnology. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Read More