Scientific Impact of Cloning
Cloning should be stopped because of the high possibility of medical problems in clones. As the American reporter Patricia Reaney said, “French scientists raised fresh fears Friday about the dangers of cloning humans, saying it may cause serious long-term health problems. Researchers at France's Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique said a cow they cloned with DNA from an adult somatic cell appeared healthy but died from anemia at seven weeks” (Reaney, 1999). This shows that there are many scientific problems with cloning, with high possibility of long term health problems. If scientists continue to explore cloning, there will be inquiries about human cloning, and from there if we begin human cloning there could be many human clones having to suffer either a short life, or a life with a horrible disability. Also, there is another problem with clones in that they grow abnormally large. In an article about the problems of human cloning, it said that, “Despite technological advances, two major problems continue to plague the field of animal cloning: few clones survive to term and those that do are grotesquely large” (Melville, 2001). This abnormality in clones is call Large Offspring Syndrome, and means that the organs and other parts of the body are much larger than that of their natural counterpart. Large Offspring Syndrome creates problems with breathing, blood flow, and other problems. It is yet another problem with the experimentation of cloning. If we clone someone, do we want them to be born into the world with so many problems so that it can live a short and painful life with these awful medical problems. Even with this information, some do argue for the continuation of cloning because of the advances in medical fields it can bring. Therapeutic cloning could provide cloned organs that have been damaged in a person, and then that organ can be replaced. Even though this is an idea that could improve the lives of people, there will be many people that want more out of cloning. After reproducing organs, there will be pushes to perform the cloning process for humans, which would be completely outrageous because of the medical and ethical issues of cloning. Therefor, because of the many medical problems linked with it, cloning should not be continued.