How Much Longer Until The Designer Baby Is Born? Essay - 2,621 words

How much longer until the designer baby is born? Not so long ago cloning of a human was merely a science fiction. As for me, not so long ago Ive read a book (science fiction), which described the lives of people in future, somewhere in 2240. This book described a human race as a race in which children are modified before their birth according to the tastes of their parents. Author pointed that such modification was not always good for a child. As for me, it was rather creepy to read. More than that, I understand that such kind of future reality may come true. Now we dont ask about a possibility of human cloning.


Tomorrow we will decide what kinds of genes our children will have. In this paper I want to discuss not only the aspect of cloning, we already now that it is possible, but I want to discuss biological, Psychological and Religious aspects of the question. According to the information founded on the site www.clonaid.com, the world's first clone baby was born on December 26, 2002. I was rather shocked myself. I did not know that the designer baby was already born. The 5 clone babies that were born between December 26th, 2002 and February 4th, 2003 are developing normally.


Their progress has been documented and will be published through the Human Clone Rights Foundation - the association of the parents who have been cloned or who desire to be cloned.(Clonaid News) I can continue to give examples on this topic but truth still is the truth and cloned children lives happily among us. Lets see the subject closer from the biological point of view. We will start from the diffinitions. Cloning is the production of one or more individual plants or animals that are genetically identical to another plant or animal. (Embryo cloning of humans) There are different kinds of cloning. The most natural one is an embryo cloning. Embryo cloning we may, as well, named artificial twinning because the mechanism is similar to which twins naturally develop.


In the process of cloning one or more cells are removed from an embryo and these cells are encouraged to develop into the separate embryo. This embryo has the same DNA as the original. This practice is successfully carried for years on many species of animals but there were only some limited experimentation on human embryos. I want to add the best specialist in twinning is nature from time to time the fertilized ovum splits and produces monozygotic twins. The genetic makeups of the twins are identical to on another. The other thing is the adult DNA cloning.


It usually involves the removing of the DNA from an embryo and replacing it with the DNA from an adult animal (or human). Then the embryo develops into a new human (or animal) with the same DNA as the donor. This practice was used to clone different animals. It has not been tried on humans. And when I told you about the cloned babies I had in mind the embryo cloned babies. I hope that I did not confuse you. Lets take a closer look on the mechanism of adult DNA cloning. As we know every cell in the body (excepts from the sperm and the egg) contains DNA, in which all genetic material can be founded.


We can get the DNA even from the hair. But as had outlined Dr. Ray Bohlin, director of communications at Probe Ministries, cells have been biochemical programmed to perform limited functions.(The Little Lamb That Made a Monkey of Us All - Can Humans be Cloned Like Sheep?") The other functions are not working. Most scientists had believed that such differentiated cells could not be reprogrammed to be capable of behaving as a fertilized egg. (Reproductive cloning) In the case of the famous ship Dolly, a cell was taken from the mammary tissue of while its DNA was in dormant state. Then the DNA was fused with the sheep ovum which had had its nucleos removed.


Then the cleaned cell was stimulated with an electric pulse. From the 277 attempts of cell fusion only 29 began to divide. They all were implanted in 29 ships. From these 29 only thirteen sheeps became pregnant and only one lamb was born. It was famous Dolly. It was a first attempt of cloning.


The second attempt was cloning a mouse. And it was unsuccessful. There were speculations on the possibility of cloning the mouse. Maybe, the cells need to be used after the third or fourth divisions complete. Scientist thought that this would give the ovum a sufficient time to reprogram the DNA from its original cell functions to egg cell functions. According to the fact that both human and mice use the DNA after the second cell division appeared an opinion that humans as well as mice cannot be clonable.


But some time later the mouse was successfully cloned. So, the reproductive cloning of human is also possible. There are still many problems in the process but the main two are this: the cell is taken from the organism of certain age so the life of cloned animal (or human) is already the same age as the cell. In other words the newborn animal may have old cells and that will reduce its life. The other problem is fertility. Some cloned animals are sterile. If these two obstacles will be surmounting the human cloning would not be an issue.


On December 14, 1998 at the Infertility Clinic at Kyeonghee University in Korea was announced about the successful cloning of human. They we able to confirm division of the cell up to the fourth stage. The goal of their research was not to clone humans, but to clone specific, genetically identical organs for human transplant. They did not implant the morula into a human uterus because of ethical considerations. They destroyed it. The Korean Federation for the Environmental Movement (KFEM) immediately issued a statement criticizing the study. Members of the Life Safety Ethics Association held a protest demonstration in front of the university.("Human Cloning Test Succeeds") As we know officials usually takes great interest in developing new technologies, etc. However, in the case of human cloning Congress passed a bill, which banned human cloning by any organization in the USA.


But I so not think that such measures will prevent these efforts being made elsewhere. Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir Joseph Rotblat said Inevitably the problems will be overcome, and it's then that the real ethical problems begin. Ethics are not absolute. Look at in-vitro fertilization. This was originally considered unethical but is now widely accepted..."I feel that this [cloning], too, will become acceptable. Maybe he is right.


And with time people will take the cloning as given. In-vitro fertilization at first was rejected but later people managed to understand the value of this discovery and now it is very widely used. In-vitro fertilization helps many women to conceive a child in such cases where other doctors just say Impossible. The possibilities of cloning are endless. For example, it is a well-known fact that it is possible to find living cells in a body that has bee dead for 4 month! Just think about it, cloning as a way of resurrection from the dead? Creepy? I will say, it is rather creepy, but on the other hand what would a mother to return her dead child? I think, that she may agree on the cloning. It is just an example. But, lets try to imagine on one second that it will become possible to resurrect people from the death. How about live Mozart, or Bach, or Hitler? So, is human cloning a moral thing? Some people says that yes, it is moral and have many advantage ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: cloning, human cloning, vitro fertilization, reproductive cloning, cell

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