Why is cloning impossible? Is human cloning possible? Human reproductive cloning
Thinking about cloning yourself or someone else? Well, everyone stay where you are. fraught with dangers that you may not even suspect, well, or don’t think about (we don’t want to offend anyone). Before embarking on this fascinating business, take note of this article.
1. Make sure you really need a clone
Clones are like tattoos, forever. Be sure you need a clone.
Clones are like tattoos: once you get one, you can't get rid of it without bloodshed and hassle. And if you have a complex scheme involving dozens of clones in an interesting experiment, think carefully before you start it. You will have to watch them and the social experiment you are doing.
If you decide that your project is evil, and all clones must be destroyed, you will get your hands on a huge mess. Like in the Dark Child series. This fully docu-series shows what happens when you fall out of love with your experimental clones.
2. Don't clone yourself for parts
If you're cloning yourself for parts, you're halfway through the idea "maybe I should just transplant my brain into a new body."
It's not very good. Of course, it is easy to understand why you would do this: you are old, you have a lot of money, your body is falling apart. Then the thought arises: “I need a new liver!”. And then another: "If I clone myself, I will have all the necessary parts." After that, you will already be thinking about transplanting the brain into a new body.
As cheap 70s movies show, clones don't get excited when they find out they're just containers for extra parts. The protagonist is usually terrified, and in the end, the seeker of the part does not get what he needs. And cheating clones is not good.
After all, you can just buy organs.
3. Don't clone yourself to create an army
If you have megalomania and the will to power, you may come up with a “good” idea that the creation of an army of like-minded people will help you realize all your plans.
Are you a kind and amiable person? Then you don't have to take over the world and make everyone and everyone bow down to you. But if you're obsessed with rising to power and megalomania, cloning yourself is definitely a good idea. An army of like-minded people, smart and with the same desires as yours, will surely be better than a flock of stupid servants. The problem is that most likely these clones will also be obsessed with the lust for power, so you will not be able to stay on horseback for long, and you will end up with a bullet in the back.
4. Don't create a clone for work purposes
Would you like someone to share your responsibilities with you? Bad idea.
Not everyone likes to wash dishes. But do you know why you shouldn't clone yourself so that one of you does the dishes and the other plays video games and minds your own business? Because he doesn't want to wash the dishes either. Because it's you. Why should he want to wash the dishes? By the way, this is very urgent.
There is another, more serious problem. The moment you thought you were overburdened and decided to clone yourself, your clone comes out of the womb with the same thoughts. Moreover, he may well decide to clone himself in order to shed some obligations. And so on ad infinitum.
5. Make sure the clones will be disposed of
Accidents happen, so you should find a proven method.
Let's say you have a company with one developer. The company is located in a remote location, so instead of hiring workers from nowhere, you'd better create your own. You create a complex system of clones. The first clone after three years of work gets a “vacation”, you put him on the ship going home, which is actually a garbage collector. This scheme will work until the new clone accidentally stumbles upon the last one, revealing the whole secret, and escapes.
Waste disposal is good, but there is another way: the case that the god is an inventor. You need a clone self-destruct mechanism. Preferably one that leaves no residue other than a pleasant scent. Just hitting them with a deadly virus that will kill a clone in a couple of years will not be enough, because the clones will have enough time to get angry and break the usual foundations of being.
6. Don't make evil clones of the good guys
Evil clones drink a lot of coffee.
Do you remember at least one time when someone tried to make an evil version of a good guy and he succeeded? No.
It's hard to explain why the bad guys keep doing this. Sometimes evil clones have an inferiority complex due to the heroic original, so they can't act like a Picard clone from Star Trek. Sometimes an evil clone means a crazy clone.
But even if the clone is very accurate, capable, not crazy and mentally prepared, the original defeats him 99 times out of 100. Luke defeated his clone in Timothy Zahn's Star Wars trilogy. There are many cases in science fiction.
7. Don't clone the good guys
Even a good clone can be bad.
It's not worth it. The chances of a bad guy kidnapping a clone - at a young age - are about 98%, and after that he will still turn even a miracle into dirt. While everyone thought that baby Cable from X-Men was dead, he was cloned, and the main villain kidnapped him and turned him into the villain Stryfe.
But the chance to remain not kidnapped does not promise happiness. The female clone of Wolverine - X-23 - did everything right, but spent too much time as an underage prostitute, so it's far from cool. Even a mutant capable of creating clones of himself had problems: one of the clones had a child and was accidentally absorbed because he was counted as a clone.
Cloning a hero usually causes at least as many problems as it solves.
8. Don't marry evil clones
Don't say "I agree".
You should not part with the girls for the purpose of their subsequent cloning for certain purposes. As Scott Summers found out in the X-Men comic in the Jean Grey/Maydelyn Prior situation, the evil clones don't like that.
9. Don't Clone Your Dead Wife
Just take a course of therapeutic psychotherapy.
You should not clone a dead wife and give her the opportunity to communicate with her son of the same age as a teenager, without explaining how they are related.
In my opinion, this rule needs no explanation, but still Gendo Ikari from Evangelion broke it with a very frightening and predictable result. If you violate, prepare money for the treatment of each of the victims.
10. Don't clone yourself for a magic trick.
Cloning yourself for magic is creepy.
Especially when it comes to murder. Just count. If you do this three times a week, you will have tons of corpses on your hands. Although in The Prestige, Hugh Jackman was quite deft in dealing with the problem of bodies. But overall, it's creepy. "I killed myself a hundred times for a magic trick" sounds pretty pathetic if you choose to say it out loud.
11. Remember who's real
Who can prove that he is real?
It is unlikely that you will want to fight with your clone or clones for the right to be the first. Unfortunately, individual marks on the body or clothing are all easily reproduced. Don't forget to label clones. Perhaps by numbering or markings on the forehead.
In the Urusei Yatsura anime, the Ataru clones had flying commas above their heads, which were very useful but hard to reproduce. In any case, if you do not immediately establish who is in charge, there will be a fight, and the winner will become the default head.
In addition, you should not distinguish between clones by adding an extra vowel to the name. “Luke Skywalker sounds stupid.
Since the invention of the term "clone" in 1963, genetic engineering has experienced several colossal leaps: we have learned how to extract genes, developed the polymerase chain reaction method, deciphered the human genome, and cloned a number of mammals. And yet, in humans, the evolution of cloning stopped. What ethical, religious and technological challenges did she face? T&P looked into the history of making genetic copies to understand why we haven't cloned ourselves yet.
The word "cloning" (English "cloning") comes from the ancient Greek word "κλών" - "twig, offspring." This term describes a wide variety of processes that make it possible to create a genetic copy of a biological organism or part of it. The appearance of such a copy may differ from the original, but from the point of view of DNA, it is always completely identical to it: the blood type, tissue properties, the sum of qualities and predispositions remain the same as in the first case.
The history of cloning began more than a hundred years ago, in 1901, when the German embryologist Hans Spemann managed to split a two-celled salamander embryo in half, and grow a full-fledged organism from each half. So scientists became aware that in the early stages of development, the necessary amount of information contains each cell of the embryo. A year later, another specialist, US geneticist Walter Sutton, suggested that this information is in the cell nucleus. Hans Spemann took this information into account and 12 years later, in 1914, he successfully conducted an experiment on transplanting a nucleus from one cell to another, and after another 24 years, in 1938, he suggested that the nucleus could be transplanted into a nuclear-free egg.
Then the development of cloning practically stopped, and only in 1958, the British biologist John Gurdon managed to successfully clone the clawed frog. To do this, he used intact nuclei of somatic (not involved in reproduction) cells of the tadpole organism. In 1963, another biologist, John Haldane, first used the term "clone" to describe Gurdon's work. At the same time, the Chinese embryologist Tong Dizhou conducted an experiment on transferring the DNA of an adult male carp into a female egg and received a viable fish, and at the same time the title of "father of Chinese cloning". After that, several successful experiments were carried out on the cloning of living organisms: a carrot grown from an isolated cell (1964), mice (1979), a sheep whose organisms were created from embryonic cells (1984), two cows "born" from differentiated cells from a one-week-old embryo and fetal cells (1986), two more sheep named Megan and Morag (1995), and finally Dolly (1996). And yet, for scientists, Dolly has become more of a question than an answer to a question.
Medical problems: abnormalities and "old" telomeres
It is Dolly who today holds the title of the most famous clone in the history of the discipline. After all, it was created on the basis of the genetic material of an adult, and not a fetus or embryo, like its predecessors and predecessors. However, the source of DNA, according to the assumption of a number of scientists, became a problem for the cloned sheep. The ends of the chromosomes in Dolly's body - telomeres - turned out to be as short as those of her nuclear donor - an adult sheep. For the length of these fragments in the body, a specific enzyme, telomerase, is responsible. In the case of an adult mammalian organism, it is most often active only in germ and stem cells, as well as in lymphocyte cells at the time of the immune response. In tissues consisting of such material, the chromosomes are constantly lengthened, but in all the rest they are shortened after each division. When the chromosomes reach a critical length, the cell stops dividing. That is why telomerase is considered one of the main intracellular mechanisms that regulates the lifespan of cells.
Today it is impossible to say for sure whether Dolly's "old" chromosomes caused her early death for sheep. She lived for 6.5 years, which is slightly more than half the usual life expectancy for this species.
Specialists had to euthanize Dolly as she developed virus-induced adenomatosis (benign tumors) of the lungs and severe arthritis. Ordinary sheep also often suffer from these diseases, but more often at the end of life, so it is obviously impossible to exclude the effect of Dolly's telomere length on tissue degradation. Scientists who wanted to test the hypothesis about the "old" telomeres of cloned living beings failed to confirm it: the artificial "aging" of the cell nuclei of a young calf by their long-term cultivation in a test tube after the birth of its clones gave a completely opposite result: the length of telomeres in the chromosomes of newborn calves is strongly increased and even surpassed the normal values.
Cloned animals may have shorter telomeres than their normal counterparts, but that's not the only problem. Most of the mammalian embryos obtained by cloning die. The moment of birth is also critical. Newborn clones often suffer gigantism, die from respiratory distress, defects in the development of the kidneys, liver, heart, brain, and the absence of white blood cells in the blood. If the animal still survives, it is not uncommon for it to develop other anomalies in old age: for example, cloned mice often become obese in old age. However, the offspring of cloned warm-blooded creatures do not inherit the defects of their physiology. This suggests that the changes in DNA and chromatin that can occur during transplantation of a donor nucleus are reversible and are erased when the genome passes through the germline: a series of cell generations from the primary germ cells of the embryo to the reproductive products of the adult organism.
Social aspect: how to socialize a clone
Cloning does not allow you to completely repeat the consciousness of a person, because not everything in the process of its formation is due to genetics. That is why there can be no question of the complete identity of the donor and cloned personality, and therefore the practical value of cloning is actually much lower than how science fiction writers and directors traditionally see it in their minds. And yet, today, in any case, it remains unclear how to create a place for a cloned person in society. What name should he have? How to formalize paternity, motherhood, marriage in his case? How to solve legal issues of property and inheritance? Obviously, the reconstruction of a person on the basis of donor genetic material would require the emergence of a special social and legal niche. Its emergence would change the landscape of the familiar system of family and social relations much more than, for example, the registration of same-sex marriages.
Religious aspect: man in the role of God
Representatives of major religions and confessions oppose human cloning. Pope John Paul II, who was the primate of the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005, formulated its position as follows: “The path indicated by Christ is the path of respect for man, and any research should have the goal of knowing him in his truth, so that later serve it, not manipulate it according to a design that is sometimes arrogantly considered better than the design of the Creator himself. For a Christian, the mystery of being is so deep that it is inexhaustible for human knowledge. But the man who, with the arrogance of Prometheus, elevates himself to the arbiter between good and evil, turns progress into his own absolute ideal and is subsequently crushed by it. The past century, with its ideologies that sadly marked its tragic history, and the wars that have torn it, stands before the eyes of all as a demonstration of the result of such arrogance.
Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexy II, who held this post from 1990 to 2008, opposed experiments to genetically recreate a person even more harshly. “Human cloning is an immoral, insane act leading to the destruction of the human personality, challenging its Creator,” the patriarch said. The 14th Dalai Lama was also wary of human genetic experiments. “As for cloning, as a scientific experiment, it makes sense if it benefits a specific person, but if it is used all the time, there is nothing good in it,” said the Buddhist high priest.
The fears of believers and ministers of the church are caused not only by the fact that in such experiments a person goes beyond the traditional ways of reproducing his species and, in fact, takes on the role of God, but also by the fact that even within the framework of one attempt to clone tissues using embryonic cells, several embryos must be created, most of which will die or be killed. Unlike the process of cloning, which is predictably not mentioned in the Bible, there is information about the origin of human life in the canonical Christian texts. David's Psalm 139:13-16 says, "For You formed my inward parts and knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, because I am wonderfully made. Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul is fully aware of this. My bones were not hidden from Thee, when I was formed in secret, formed in the depths of the womb. My fetus has been seen by Your eyes; in Your book are written all the days appointed for me, when none of them were yet. Theologians traditionally interpret this statement as an indication that the soul of a person does not arise at the moment of his birth, but earlier: between conception and birth. Because of this, the destruction or death of the embryo can be considered as murder, and this contradicts one of the biblical commandments: "Thou shalt not kill."
Clone use: recreate organs, not people
Cloning of human biological material in the coming decades, however, may still be useful and finally lose its "criminal" mystical and ethical component. Modern technologies for preserving cord blood make it possible to take stem cells from it to create organs for transplantation. Such organs are ideal for a person, because they carry his own genetic material and are not rejected by the body. At the same time, for such a procedure there is no need to recreate the embryo. Experiments for the development of such technology have already been carried out: in 2006, British scientists managed to grow a small liver from cord blood cells of a baby conceived and born in the usual way. This happened a few months after his birth. The organ turned out to be small: only 2 cm in diameter, but its tissues were in order.
However, the more well-known forms of therapeutic cloning today involve the creation of a blastocyst: an early-stage embryo of about 100 cells. In perspective, blastocysts are, of course, human, so their use is often as controversial as cloning to produce a living human. This is partly why today all forms of cloning, including therapeutic ones, are officially banned in many countries. Reproduction of human biomaterial for therapeutic purposes is only permitted in the US, India, the UK and parts of Australia. Cord blood preservation technologies are used frequently today, but so far scientists consider it only as a potential tool to combat type 1 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and not as a possible resource for creating organs for transplantation.
Human cloning no longer seems such a fantasy as some 20-30 years ago. In this issue, we will talk about how scientists have advanced in this matter and how soon we will be able to grow clones for ourselves.
Let's start, perhaps, with our smaller brothers, because it is animals that show the main successes in matters of cloning. Of course, we could not ignore Dolly the sheep, which became the first cloned mammal back in 1995. And on January 24 of this year, scientists from China officially reported on the successful cloning of monkeys, which brought humanity much closer to creating their own copies. But such scientific experiments, first of all, are aimed at studying genetic diseases and new methods of fighting cancer, which claim millions of lives every year.
Newborn clones often suffer from gigantism, defects in the liver, heart and brain, due to which the animals simply die. This is one of the major obstacles to human cloning. Also, thanks to science fiction people, people think about the absolute identity of the clone, not only in appearance, but also, for example, in character. Unfortunately, this factor cannot be controlled, because. Human consciousness is formed not only by genetics.
If we talk about the complete cloning of human DNA, then such procedures are prohibited in most countries, which at the same time does not interfere with the development of genetics. Scientists have managed to save human umbilical cord blood and grow stem cells from it. But they are the building material for growing new organs. At the moment, humanity already has the experience of transplanting not only skin and bones, but also artificially grown bladders and trachea.
It will be important to note that there is another way of cloning, which causes a huge amount of controversy in society. This is the cultivation of a full-fledged human embryo consisting of about 100 cells. Its biomaterial is suitable for growing organs and other therapeutic purposes. True, such procedures are only allowed in the US, India and the UK, as well as in some parts of Australia.
Finally, it is also worth noting that, despite the development of technology, we still live in a deeply religious society. The Pope and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church speak out against a person trying on the role of the Lord, and the lack of guarantees for the viability of the fetus makes one think about the ethics of cloning. All these factors, as well as various international conventions, are unlikely to allow legal human cloning in the next century, which, of course, will not interfere with secret experiments that are most likely being carried out by transcontinental medical corporations.
PostScience debunks scientific myths and explains common misconceptions. We asked our experts to comment on popular ideas people have about reproductive cloning.
A clone is an exact copy of the original
It's more of an inaccuracy
There are several uses of the term "clone": as a designation for the offspring of a single cell (common slang in scientific circles) or as a designation for an organism that has an identical genome to the original (like Dolly the sheep, obtained by transferring the nucleus of the "original" somatic cell into a donor egg). The problem is that in both cases the genomes of the original and the clone will not be identical due to the accumulation of random mutations. For example, the cells of our body may differ from each other in the set of mutations acquired in the process of division, although we must be a clone of the very first cell of the embryo. The same story with identical twins, which are actually clones of each other, but nevertheless differ in a set of mutations.
If this is not enough to believe in the non-identity of the clone and the original, one can move from observing changes in DNA to epigenetic. At the level of epigenetic changes, all our cells are different, the cells of twins are even more different, and even a colony of cells (derivatives of the same cell) growing under the same conditions in a Petri dish will also contain cells that are slightly different epigenetically from each other. Thus, a clone is a perfect copy of the original in a world where replication and epigenetic errors do not exist, but in the real world it is only an attempt to recreate the original.
Mammoth cloning is impossible
Theoretically it is possible
Theoretically, mammoth cloning is possible, and there is a non-zero probability that there will actually be a cell in which mammoth DNA is intact, so it can be used for cloning. There is also a non-zero probability that after some time, scientists will be able to synthesize a full-fledged intact mammoth genome. That is, it is theoretically possible, but it is unlikely that such manipulations can occur in the near future using cloning technologies, since in order to find a fossil mammoth cell that will contain a whole set of DNA, approximately 1014 cells must be sorted and analyzed. And it's hard for me to say how long it will take to artificially synthesize full-length DNA, but to date, about 106 nucleotides have been synthesized in Craig Venter's laboratory. And we will need to synthesize approximately 109 nucleotides, that is, in order to reach such a technical level of synthesis, it will probably take at least another ten or two years. Therefore, theoretically, mammoth cloning is possible, but it is unlikely that it will occur within the lifetime of the current generation.
Sergei Kiselev
Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Epigenetics of the Institute of General Genetics. N. I. Vavilov RAS
Cloned animals don't have parents
It all depends on who we consider parents
Each person is the product of the combination of an equal number of genes from his parents, which are found in the DNA of the father's sperm and the mother's egg. After fertilization, each gene (or, rather, almost each, because there are also genes for sex chromosomes and mitochondria) is present in two copies. Genes “work,” or, as scientists say, are expressed, and as a result of the sequential switching on and off of certain genes, a full-fledged organism develops. In mammals, the egg is fertilized in the womb, where it develops into a fetus.
In cloned animals, things happen a little differently. The very first and famous clone was, of course, Dolly the sheep. She had neither a father nor a mother in the usual sense. In order for Dolly to be born, scientists took an unfertilized egg from one sheep and mechanically removed the nucleus from it, which contained the maternal genetic information. Further into such an enucleated ( nucleus- this is the “nucleus”) the egg was injected with a nucleus taken from the cell of the udder of another sheep. The result was an egg with a double set of genes - not because half of the genes belonged to the father and half to the mother, but because the udder cell of the sheep from which the nucleus was taken contained a double set of genes.
The last stage of the cloning process is identical to the gestation of fertilized eggs by a surrogate mother. The resulting egg with a double set of genes was planted in the womb of the third sheep, which bore the fetus - the future Dolly. As a result, Dolly can have a different number of parents depending on who you consider the parents to be. From the point of view of genetics, Dolly, of course, is a clone of the animal from whose udder cell the nucleus was taken. Therefore, her genetic mom and dad are the parents of this donor sheep. The surrogate mother is a sheep that bore Dolly. And she received the mitochondrial genes from the third animal - the sheep from which the egg was taken, she is Dolly's mitochondrial mother.
Konstantin Severinov
Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SkolTech), Professor at Rutgers University (USA), Head of the Laboratory of Molecular, Ecological and Applied Microbiology, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University
Human cloning is ethically unacceptable
Is it true
The goals of reproductive cloning can be different. The first ethically unjustified goal is to recreate a complete genetic copy of the body as a set of spare parts for a specific person, for example, in order to use the possibilities of transplantation as a way to combat aging, diseases, and loss of organ efficiency. If we grow a whole organism, treating it as a set of spare parts, we violate the key ethical dogma that one should not treat a person as a means, but only as an end. Any object that is alive, even if artificially reproduced, must be considered a target. The situation with such cloning violates key ethical norms.
If we are talking about reproductive cloning not only for the sake of growing an organism, but for the sake of recreating the completeness of the biological and social, then this is impossible, because all genetic programs are implemented only in the environment. The main behavioral traits are quantitative, that is, their specific behavior depends not only on the reaction norm inherent in the genotype, but also on the influence of society (intelligence, cognitive abilities, propensity for criminal behavior). Even if we repeat the norm of the reaction of the genotype, we will never create social conditions that allow us to achieve a similar manifestation of the trait. The society is very dynamic, and we cannot repeat its conditions that affected a particular person. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the selectivity of the reaction to individual factors. A person is influenced not only by purposefully created conditions, but also by factors of untargeted influence: the environment, the media and other agents of socialization. Therefore, neither the target setting nor the mechanisms for implementing the idea of reproductive cloning are ethically and scientifically justified.
Cloning has been one of the most controversial issues in medicine for many years, with many pros and cons against the procedure. The first mention of clones dates back to 1963. It was then that this term began to be used by a geneticist from the UK.
Necessary terminology
Biologists use several definitions for the word clone. Most often, this term means a certain organism that appeared through extrasexual reproduction and retained hereditary information from its ancestor. The cloning process reproduces the gene structure. However, it cannot be said that these are absolute copies. Their genotype is exactly the same. But clones can differ in their supragenetic properties. They can have a different size, color, susceptibility to diseases.
For example, the well-known sheep Dolly was not a completely phenotypic copy of the sheep whose cells were used to obtain it. She had a lot of pathologies, because of which she died at an early age. And the parent sheep did not have any diseases. After the birth of Dolly, many began to talk about the possibilities of extrasexual human reproduction. Few of the supporters of this branch of biology are stopped by the fact that about 85% of attempts to make clones end in failure. But the ignorance of this area is far from the only arguments against cloning.
Potential Opportunities
At present, it is still too early to talk about the reproduction of exact copies of people. But after all, not only this requires cloning: for and against the continuation of research in this area, many arguments can now be found. But do not forget that it gives a lot of opportunities.
Thus, one of the promising areas is transplantology. There is no need to look for a donor, check compatibility, wait for an operation and pray that the process of rejection does not begin. Cloning would make it possible to grow an absolutely identical organ and transplant it.
Also, many say that this is a chance for childless families who do not want to take a foster child. In addition, cloning will avoid a number of hereditary diseases. Many want to use these technologies in order to avoid old age and natural death.
It is difficult to say what the future holds for cloning. There are strong arguments for and against on both sides. But adherents and opponents of such a reproduction of a person speak of different sides of the coin.
It is believed that someday scientists will be able to make neurons that can replace nerve cells in the brain that die as a result of the progression of Parkinson's disease. There are also plans to create pancreatic cells that can produce natural insulin in the body of diabetics.
Prohibitions on conducting experiments
Despite the fact that scientists are still very far from creating a full-fledged healthy copy of a person, this is already prohibited at the legislative level. So, for example, the UN has developed a special declaration, which indicates the inadmissibility of such human reproduction experiments as cloning. Against (composition of legislators, fortunately for researchers, is only advisory in nature) the development of these technologies was only 84 members. But the declaration is actively supported in the USA, in the East, in Latin America and Africa.
Many spoke in favor of continuing to develop technologies, to conduct experiments with cloning. But at the same time, copying people remains unacceptable. Reproductive technologies through cloning have been banned in more than 30 countries. Among them are Russia, many European countries, Japan, China, Israel.
True, scientists continue to clone embryos. It is believed that this direction should revolutionize medicine. In their opinion, doctors with the help of these modern technologies have a chance to defeat a number of diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's or diabetes. Geneticists believe that any prohibitions may protect morality, morality, but they doom people living today to death. In order to understand one's attitude to this question, one must know all the arguments of the militant camps. Then everyone will be able to make a choice for himself and understand how he relates to modern technologies. Many still at school understand all the nuances and determine both sides of the coin called "cloning: pros and cons." An essay on such a topic helps to understand well your attitude to this issue.
Impending dangers
Speaking about the need to ban any artificial reproductive technologies, people are afraid that doctors cannot competently handle any scientific discoveries. Even the most secret developments become known to a wide range of people. So, for example, happened with atomic weapons. Therefore, it is impossible to control scientific knowledge and its dissemination.
Despite all the possibilities that human cloning opens up, the pros and cons need to be well weighed. For example, the development of these technologies can free the hands of aggressive states and terrorist groups. They will be able to create armies of physically hardy people, not weighed down by intellect. In addition, it will be possible to create clones of world rulers and undermine their authority, bring chaos to political life.
But speaking of this, many people forget that in order to get a clone of a person at the age of, for example, 40 years, it is necessary that these 40 years have passed. After all, they grow up just like ordinary people. In addition, you also need to find parents who will agree to give birth and raise a cloned child. So, in order to get an army of clones, it is necessary that at least 20-25 years have passed.
Another threatening danger is that people will be able to program the desired sex of the child. For example, in China or Muslim countries, where the birth of a boy is preferable, there can be a huge imbalance.
Also, do not forget that these reproductive technologies are not yet perfect. Scientists have learned to take and reproduce genetic material, but creating viable copies of it is too difficult for them. For geneticists, this is no reason to stop. Without further research, it is impossible to develop this industry.
Other objections
Many people are opposed to reproductive technology simply because they don't understand what human cloning is for. The arguments for and against are incomprehensible to them. Opponents say that a person is a unique creation and it is unacceptable to make a copy of him. In their opinion, this is below the dignity of people. But at the same time, they forget that there are about 150 million of them on the planet with similar codes.
Many people are disgusted by the very idea of cloning. But this is not at all a reason to prohibit research in this industry. The decision to reproduce their own kind should be taken only by the people themselves. Otherwise, humanity is deprived of the right to promoted freedom of choice. Proponents genuinely wonder why cloning is more disgusting than, for example, gender reassignment.
But there are other arguments against human cloning. So, copying the code will reduce the genetic diversity of people on the planet. Cloned offspring will become weaker, more prone to various diseases. And this will be the impetus for the development of epidemics. But for this it is necessary that cloning in the literal sense be put on an industrial scale. About 6 billion people live on the planet. Even if 1 million clones appear, this number will be negligible in order to affect non-genotypic diversity. But even if you copy each person, you get 6 billion different copies.
To understand what cloning is, whether you are for or against this phenomenon, you must also take into account that this process is incomparable with genetic engineering. In the process, genes are not modified or changed in any way, but simply copied. This leads to the fact that an exact copy of a person appears without any changes. He cannot become a freak or a monster. Only the use of genetic engineering technologies, where DNA is modified, can lead to such results.
Ethical aspects
Opponents of the idea of human cloning emphasize that the reproduction of human copies is unethical. The church is also actively opposed to this. But religious people for the most part are opponents of all reproductive technologies, including IVF. They say that the creation of man, the mystery of his birth, should be subject only to God. Man should not interfere in these matters.
But representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church say that individual organs, tissues, and animals can be reproduced. But they also oppose full human reproduction. However, they do not consider this issue, as scientists do not evaluate cloning from a scientific point of view. They have their own pros and cons. Orthodox talk about the ethical side of the issue. First of all, they ask about how a person will feel when he finds out that he is completely someone else's copy. Legal aspects are also important. Will the clone be the heir of the person who became the donor? Should he continue his way?
In addition, it is obvious that people are unlikely to stop at simple cloning. They will want to combine it with genetic engineering. That is, if this industry develops, then many will want to make improved copies of a person. For example, they will strive to increase physical endurance, improve mental abilities, stimulate individual organs, and influence appearance.
generally accepted norms of morality
Speaking about the benefits of cloning and the dangers that threaten, few people think about how exactly this process takes place. So, embryonic stem cells are best suited. After all, approximately for a period of 14 days, all organs and systems of the body begin to form from them. Scientists believe that 3-4 day old cells are ideal for cloning technologies.
Stem pluripotent cells are most suitable for cloning. All organs and tissues are formed from them, but a single organism cannot be recreated. It is at this stage that geneticists are most opposed. For many years there has been an active discussion, an assessment is given of how ethical the cloning of human embryos is: the pros and cons of each camp are quite weighty. So, opponents do not get tired of recalling that abortive embryos are used to obtain these cells.
To obtain organs, this option of cloning is being considered. The embryo is grown up to three months of age. After that, it is removed from and placed in a sterile space, where the processes of its vital activity will be supported. According to adherents of the theory, a body grown in this way cannot be called either a person or a full-fledged clone. They call them simply a group of interacting organs, because the consciousness of a living being ceased activity during the abortion period. Opponents of cloning categorically disagree with this scheme for the development of reproductive medicine.
Opinion of geneticists
Experts involved in the technology of growing living cells artificially argue that it is impossible to get an identical copy of a person. After all, it is not only genes that shape it, but also the circumstances in which it grew up. And it's impossible to recreate it. People think about reproducing famous people, outstanding athletes, geniuses, but they forget that only external resemblance will be common. It is impossible to create the same copy as the original.
In addition, it is too early to talk about such opportunities. Therefore, it is useless to argue about ethical aspects and hold discussions on the topic "Cloning: pros and cons" for the time being. Now scientists can take donor tissue, place it in an egg that lacks its own genetic material, and grow a blastocyle out of it. But after that, it must be planted in the uterus. When growing sheep Dolly, 277 clones were created, of which only 29 took root in the uterus. Of this amount, only one viable sheep was obtained.
Experiments on mice made it clear that offspring can be obtained in this way. But at the same time, a certain hidden defect appears in animals. Outwardly, they are absolutely healthy. But with each generation, they were less and less amenable to cloning.
Even experts do not undertake to claim that these technologies are safe. They themselves can tell everything they know about the advantages and dangers that cloning is fraught with (“for” or “against”). An essay on this topic by each of them will be able to show what additional dangers lie in wait for experimenters.
Cons through the eyes of experts
Geneticists are calm about the fact that they use embryos for research, they are not worried about the religious side of the issue or moral and ethical aspects. They may name other arguments against cloning. But, in their opinion, they are connected only with the fact that this industry requires additional research.
So, while it is clear to specialists that cloning cannot be a substitute for the natural reproduction of offspring. But the reason why the process is becoming more difficult with each generation of clones has not yet been clarified. There are two main versions. According to one of them, with each cloning, the end of the chromosome called "telomere" is "slicked off". And this makes it impossible to copy further. But this assumption was refuted as a result of experiments on mice. According to another version, this is due to the fact that the health of the clones is deteriorating with each generation. But this also could not be confirmed.
Right choice
It is endless to talk about whether it is worth reproducing a person or other living beings. After all, there will always be opposing parties that can argue on the topic "Cloning: pros and cons." A table listing all the potential advantages and disadvantages of this method is unlikely to help reconcile them. Although it will give each person the opportunity to determine their point of view.
Empirically, it was found that even copying DNA will not make it possible to obtain an identical living being. So, for example, a cloned cat had a different color than her mother, a donor of genetic material. Many thought that this technology would allow them to "resurrect" pets, the most daring even hoped to reproduce the departed people.
Therefore, no one undertakes to consider cloning as a branch of reproductive medicine at this time. But it is possible to develop its potential in the therapeutic field. If you go exclusively this way, then the number of opponents decreases sharply. To do this, you can consider all the nuances that affect the process called cloning. The pros and cons can be summarized as follows. The main advantages include opening up opportunities for the treatment of many serious diseases, the restoration of skin affected by burns, and organ replacement. But opponents insist that it is necessary to remember the moral and ethical side of the issue, that these technologies are designed to kill the emerging life (embryos from which stem cells are taken).
