Cloning

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Recommended: Negative effects of cloning

Cloning humans is a threat to our society. It presents a vast number of problems that arise with each new discovery. The first is the decrease in distinct genetic make-up. Cloning also brings up many ethical points dealing with creation and psychological well being of clones. Cloning is such a new area of study that it requires a large amount of money and offers a lot of room for mistakes.

The biggest problem with the use of cloning is the decline in genetic diversity. The biological definition of a clone is "an organism that has the same genetic information as another organism or organisms". This means that gene donors would obviously have the exact same DNA as their clones. If large groups of people have the same genetic information, a disease could instantaneously wipe out the entire population.

Our genetic make-up is what makes us unique. It gives us a sense of individuality and distinctiveness. If many people had the same DNA, how would we preserve our diversity and sense of self?

Human cloning also raises many ethical and moral issues. Different religious groups regard cloning in different ways, but most agree on one point. Cloning puts the work of God into our own hands. The creation of life then becomes a manufacturing of duplicates instead of a "creative act of God".

It is also important to consider the repercussions of cloning on the cloned individual. Numerous psychological problems may arise if a person discovers that he or she was cloned. How would a child feel if they found out that they were created to be used to donate organs or replace a lost loved one? A cloned child may also feel obligated to follow the pre-determined path of their gene donor. This would bring about a lot of confusion and emotional damage for the individual.

There is a great margin of error in the new technology of cloning. Because we are still developing these scientific procedures, there is a lot of room for mistakes. This means that in the process of experimenting, clones with great genetic abnormalities could be created. What would happen to these degenerate individuals? Should they live life as rejects of society or be disposed of as mistakes?

Cloning is currently a very expensive process. It requires large amounts of money and biological expertise. It took 277 tries to create Dolly, the first successfully cloned sheep. New techniques are constantly being developed, but even they have a success rate of 2-3%.

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