Ethics of Animal Cloning
"God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. '" (NIV) Ten years ago Dolly, the first cloned mammal was born. She was a sheep cloned by scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. (Oak Ridge) Since then there has been a swarm of controversy over cloning in general. (Caplan) Even as the technology and use of cloning advances, major ethical questions are raised. To answer these questions it is important to understand the cloning process and how it actually works. There are actually three different types of cloning, DNA Cloning, Reproductive Cloning, and Embryo Cloning. DNA cloning is just what it sounds like, cloning individual strands of DNA so they can be observed for study. This process has been around since the 1970 's. Since DNA strands are so small it is difficult to study them in small quantities. This process combines the DNA of the gene of interest with a bacterial plasmid that replicates the DNA. This process has been used extensively by the Human Genome Project but cannot be used to clone an entire specimen. (Oak Ridge) The second type of cloning, reproductive cloning, is where it gets interesting. This is the process used to clone Dolly. The process used in reproductive cloning is called "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNT). In this process, scientists transfer genetic material from the nucleus of a donor cell from the animal to be cloned. This material is transferred into an egg whose nucleus has been removed. This new egg must be treated with chemicals or electric current to stimulate cell division. The embryo is then transferred to the uterus of a female host animal that carries it till birth. (Oak Ridge) As a side note, the researchers at Roslin named their sheep Dolly after Dolly Parton since she is quite well endowed and the donor cell used in the
Cited: Saint Louis: Zondervan, 1984 Oak Ridge National Laboratory,