Individual Summer Project

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Individual Summer Project

• Human Cloning
• its ethical implication

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What do you think of when you hear the word
CLONING?

• One person goes in, two people come out
• Two people go in, four people come out
• Creation of an Army of Clones?
• Engineered to fearlessly fight to the death
• Clones instead of babies (reproduction option)
• Clones for body parts
• Clones that take your place and live your life
• A person of identical looks, abilities, feelings,
  memories

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Why Clone at All?

• Medical research
• Pharmaceuticals
• Genetic Cloning
• Therapeutic Cloning
• Reproduction

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What is cloning?

• Embryo Splitting or Cloning
• Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT)
• Reproductive Cloning
• Therapeutic Cloning

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Embryo Splitting or Cloning

• Separation of human embryo into 2 parts.
• Cells removed from fertilised ovum - have the
  potential to develop into a blastocyte
• If implanted can develop into a child.
• Genetically identical monozygotic twins
• The embryo can be spilt only a limited number of
  times, and a clone is not produced.

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Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer

• Nuclear Transfer
• 1. Extract DNA from oocyte (egg)
• 2. Extract DNA from donor cell
• 3. Inject DNA into empty oocyte and fuse with
  electricity
• 4. After a few division in culture, implant in
  surrogate mother

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Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
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Cloning and Medicine

• Therapeutic Cloning
• Cloning allows for specific genetic engineering
  because one modified cell grows into an entire
  organ / organism
• Reproductive Cloning
• Cloning makes new people from an adult cell

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History of Cloning

• Clonaid - announced first clone baby born on
  December 26, 2002 thought to be a hoax by
  Raelian movement

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Ways in which cloning may be expected to benefit
mankind

• Infertility treatment
• Plastic, reconstructive and cosmetic surgery
• Therapeutic Cloning
• can grow whole organs alleviate organ shortage
• Grow non-regenerating cells
• Brain cells for Parkinsons
• Pancreatic islet cells for Diabetes

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Drawbacks

• Reproductive cloning
• Low efficiency
• Abnormalities risk
• Therapeutic Cloning
• Cloned cells may be more vigorous and therefore
  at greater risk of becoming cancerous

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• Shorten when cell divides (except cancer cells)

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Old and New Ethical Dilemmas

• In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
• Accepted by society
• Abortion
• Legal, if contested

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Ethical Objections

• Theological
• Playing God, Taking life
• Technical
• Failures and deformities unsafe (for now)
• Creepy Applications
• Parent from beyond the grave
• Headless organ donors
• Identity
• Is clone a distinct person from DNA donor?
• Human right to a unique identity
• Treating People As Objects
• Freedom
• Freedom of Scientific Inquiry

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Ethical Concerns about Human Cloning

• Possible physical harm to embryo
• Current technology is not safe enough.
• Additional experimentation on other mammals
  should be done until the margin of error is
  reduced to equal the current risk of miscarriage
  or infant death.
• Possible psychological harms to the child
• Cloned children may suffer a diminished sense of
  individuality and personal autonomy.
• Conversely, human clones will have the advantage
  early in life of knowing what they are good at.

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• Possible degradation of the quality of life
• Cloning may encourage parents to value their
  children according to how well they meet
  expectations I.e., no unconditional love.
• Conversely, as the only way some infertile
  couples might reproduce, expectations would not
  be an issue.
• Use of scarce resources
• Cloning would only benefit infertile couples.
• Scarce resources should fund projects that are
  likely to benefit the common good.
• Conversely, research knowledge might help
  discover disease cures, improve reproductive
  technologies such as in vitro fertilization, etc.

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• Legislative
• Freedom of personal autonomy, freedom of
  reproductive choice, and freedom of scientific
  inquiry should prohibit lawmakers from making
  such research illegal.
• Conversely, the government has the authority to
  override these rights of individuals as it has
  done in the past e.g., with polygamy and
  abortion.

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