Pros And Cons Of Animal Cloning

The term clone is commonly denoted as a genetically identical organism. In today’s world, cloning is thought to only happen to humans in films or shows, but in the real world, the cloning of animals is something that exists today. Animal Cloning became a relative topic among scientists after the success of the first cloned large mammal, Dolly the sheep, using a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer. The success of cloning a large mammal opened up various possibilities that could come from this. The cloning of animals would be beneficial to both animals and humankind because it would have numerous valuable applications that could be used today and in the future. Animal cloning is beneficial because there are several farming and agricultural applications. Today,

The cloning techniques used are considered to be very unreliable and challenging. In the article from the American Journal of Reproductive Immunology, the authors state that “A major limitation of cloning adult farm animals using somatic cell nuclear transfer is the extreme inefficiency of producing live offspring” (Edwards et al 116). The techniques used for animal cloning are thought to be relatively new, in other words, the success of cloning an animal has a very low percent rate of success. In order for the cloning process to be successful, a surrogate mother is needed to for the growth of the clone. According to Riddle, the FDA stated that “surrogate mothers used to grow out clones are ‘at increased risk of adverse health outcomes…’” (112). On the other hand, the FDA also said, “none of these adverse outcomes, however, are unique to cloning” (112). If the cloning of an animal is successful, the clone and the surrogate mother both end up fairly healthy. Animal cloning is still in its early stage and most importantly, scientists are still doing extensive research on the techniques used for animal