Human cloning
...help the people in Africa or other developing countries, presupposed they can effort the genetically engineered seeds which probably will be more expensive and patented by the biotechnological industry . But scientists still don’t know about the side effects of eating foods produced by genetically engineered plants, and those “improved” plants are suspected to be harmful; it is not proved yet, but they may increase the risk of getting cancer or allergies. Another issue of genetically engineered plants is that they can be dangerous for other plants and the nature, because they are more resistant than normal plants and may “widespread” in large areas so that the normal plants have no chance to grow anymore and animals which depend on those plants can’t find food anymore, for exemple. All these issues also apply on genetically engineered animals: we don’t know wheater it is safe to eat their meat or not and in case some genetically engineered animals escape, they could do serious harm to the nature. Furthermore, there is the ethical point: what can we do to animals? Is it right to breed “improved” cows with giant udders or cows that are bigger and have more or better meat? Or to create transgenic pigs which have human genes so that their heart, liver or kidneys might be useable as organ transplants in humans? We were just about to admit that animal testing is wrong, not only that fellow beings are suffering, it also makes us see animals as a product, what they are certainly not. Why again start over with that and make it even worse? As we can see, when we talk about cloning, there are already some serious issues when it’s about the plants and the animals, but what when it comes to the human? First of all, there are three kinds of cloning: there is the “adult DNA” or “reproductive cloning”, that does not involve stem cells, but is intended to produce a duplicate of an existing individuum and also has the potential of producing severe genetic defects. The second is “embryo cloning”, a medical technique which produces identical twins or triplets by duplicating the process that nature uses to produce twins or triplets. The third is “therapeutic cloning” or “biomedical cloning”. It is a procedure whose initial stages are identical to adult DNA cloning. Stem cells are removed from a pre-embryo with the intent of producing tissue or a whole organ for transplant back into the person who supplied the DNA. The pre-embryo dies in the process. To get back to the question wheater to stop cloning and genetic engeneering or not – because we know, yes, we may be able to clone a human being – one should think about the price that will be payed. It reportedly took 104 attempts before the first in vitro fertilisation baby was born; cloning Dolly ...