Cloning?! You must be a clone!!

wannabemedstudent2
Feb 19, 2021
5 min read

Introduction:

Hi everyone we are back! And it's me Sara here with the BEST introoo!! We hope everyone had happy and safe holidays and we wish you all a blessed new year that is full of happiness, love and success. (ps. this was meant to be published last month)

Soooo we will be discussing a topic that has caused many controversies and quite frankly has the possibility of demolishing the entire moral compass of mankind! AND SO there is no other option but to evaluate it and find out, whether or not it is truly worth changing the world, as we know it, for.

AND it is ……..……..

(we love drum rolls :) )

……………. CLONING! So as we all know up until today it is illegal to clone a human being. Not only is it illegal but is also said to be completely immoral and unjust however, what if it means that you have a “Backup supply of organs and limbs” in case anything happens to those you currently have? The idea of cloning a human being can also enable a chance of theoretical immortality which when you think about it sounds very scary yet intriguing. Doesn’t it?

Pros:

Thanks for that amazing introduction Sara, now for some good ol’ positives of cloning in the medical industry. The successful cloning of a mammal from an adult nucleus of somatic cells opens new doors for significant developments in degenerative disorders of reproductive medicine, biotechnology and cellular transplantation therapies.

Therapeutic cloning is cloning specific to human cells, genes and other tissues that do not and cannot lead to a human being as opposed to reproductive cloning which is the type of cloning that creates a new human being. Therapeutic cloning aids in creating embryonic stem cells with recognised scientific and biological properties. Let me explain how amazing this is: specifically, stem cells can be turned into any type of cell in the body!!! This means they could provide the scientific basis for research leading to cures and treatments for disease. Imagine being able to repair any lost or damaged tissues in your body. Wouldn’t it be amazing to make an organ that is identical to your own?

Via cloning, diseases like cancer can be treated. The healthy gene is taken out of the same person or some other individual during the process. It is first cloned using a special technique and then the desired gene is transmitted via certain vectors into the human body as several clones are made. These vectors invade the cells of the disease and either score a KO (knockout) or render them unfit for battle.

On the other hand, a much-heated debate about the ethics of cloning was created by this breakthrough due to the negative impacts of cloning.

Cons:

Helloooooo, it’s me again, but this time with the unfortunate cons of cloning. As you all should know by now, cloning is a new science and so has a degree of uncertainty meaning that it could have dangerous repercussions as the social and mental consequences cannot be predicted hence creating scientific obstacles that must be overcome in order to accept the widespread use of cloning.

When I mentioned the societal impacts, I understood the significance of them as they may seem like the least of our worries when they are possibly more important than the mental impact on the public. This impact would create a divide between people born through regular means of sexual reproduction and people born from the cloning process as they would feel ostracised and be classified as inhuman and treated like cattle to be used for medical purposes. Additionally, it may also cause an economic divide depending on the societal status of people. Let me explain, a society where genetic selection is possible would place a higher emphasis on the socioeconomic means of each person or household. Basically, those who could afford to clone would essentially create their own class, while those who could not afford the process would likely be shunned or disregarded by the rest of society. This is a cruel thought especially that it is still prevalent in our modern world without the widespread use of cloning.

Finally, there are also important medical disadvantages of cloning as yes it may help treat diseases but may also create new illnesses as the increased possibility of cell mutation will result in new and more aggressive genetic diseases to begin within humans, creating a lot of problems. This cell mutation can also lead to organ rejection which is literally the opposite of what cloning is meant to be used for.

So as we can see, the cons of this process still have to be taken seriously and should definitely not be ignored. However, it is now time for you to understand some of our opinions on this.

Opinion:

Hey! It’s Joud ;) and my opinion on cloning is pretty mixed.

There are several types of cloning, whether it be an organ, human or animal and it massively changes my opinion on it.

In terms of organ cloning, I fully agree with it as it saves the donor, the doctor and the receiver lots of time and avoids the risk of complications due to possible rejection. In order to receive an organ donor, you would need to go through extensive applications and health checks, and need to pay lots of money in order to get approved for an organ. The process is also very risky as there is the chance that the organ is rejected by the receiver and this may cause further complications or even death. Organ cloning involves producing organs that are genetically identical to the patient’s own and thus poses no risk of rejection when transplanted.

However, in terms of human cloning, I don’t feel like I would be able to embrace the idea as just the thought of possibly interacting with a clone makes me uneasy haha. I also think that human cloning could actually affect people psychologically. This is because, theoretically, if you were to clone humans, you would obviously choose the most “desirable” features to be embraced by the clone. If people saw this “perfect” person, it would cultivate insecurities and whatnot. Additionally, looking at it from an ethical perspective, the fact that cloning involves the use of human subjects seems to violate human rights as well as human dignity. From an Islamic viewpoint, I think that the act of deciding whether an exact copy of a human (or the production of a new soul at all) is all in God’s will. I believe that God is the one who decides if a new child must be created or whether a monozygotic twin/ triplets/ quadruplets/ quintuplets/ sextuplets...you get the point (although the further down you go, the rarer the occasion becomes). And lastly, I would like to touch upon the individual impacts of human cloning. The fact that the child will look exactly like either parent and not both of them means that the lack of a father (or mother) leads to not exactly the same type of moral support and wellbeing development that comes with having two parents.

Anyways, as I have mentioned before, the type of cloning impacts my opinion and as you have seen, I am passionately against human cloning.

Conclusion:

I think it's too late to say hey but I am going to do it anyway...HEY!!! it's Jana here to conclude yet again an amazing article. I hope you got to see a few perspectives on cloning. It is such an interesting and never-ending topic (yet here I am ending it). What do YOU think about cloning? do you think it will have an impact on medicine? I guess we will have to see in a few years!!! BAIIIIII Y'ALL