Biology Journal 5: Sample Student Responses

Human Cloning?

(Article referenced: http://www.cnn.com/2001/tech/science/11.26/human.cloning/index.html)

The day after ACT announced that it had the breakthrough for creating human embryos, countries all over the world began to think about bans on human cloning. In Britain thre’s a ban on embryo clones being implanted into a womb, but there’s no ban on using cell nuclear replacement in research, which is the type of cloning scientists used for Polly. Embryos are desired because they contain stem cells that can be used to make any human tissue. There are over 170 countries that have no rules over human cloning, which means that even if the U.S. or Britain makes it illegal the scientist will go to one of the 170 countries to carry on.

It is groups like Clondid who move out of the U.S. to clone humans after being investigated by the Feds. Who knows what these people will do? After all, they founded a movement that believes that alien scientists created life on earth, they believe that human cloining will achieve eternal life. First of all, humans can’t live eternally through clones because a clone is a different person who happens to have the same DNA. Clones also age early. We need to come to some world agreement that will restrict human cloning throughout the nations. Once it’s proved that a human can be cloned successfully there’s no stopping people.

There are some people who say that by creating organs to help people live that’s tampering with nature by trying to elongate our lives beyond what’s natural. However, don’t we already do this by taking medications and vitamins, and giving organ transplants? I strongly oppos using technology to create new human lives, but I strongly support using our new knowledge to save naturally created beings.


After listening to a couple of people present their news articles about the issue of cloniing, I decided to do some further research on this subject. So I went to www.cnn.com. They had very informational sites that explained cloning step by step. I first visited one about cloning animals They cloned a sheep named Dolly in 1996 using “nuclear transfer.” This is the step-by-step process they went through:

1) cultured a cell from the udder of adult sheep A
2) harvested an egg from sheep B and removed the genetic code
3) used electricity to combine the egg and cell together
4) implanted the divided fertilized egg (now called an embryo) into sheep C, which gave birth to Dolly.


Dolly is the exact clone of sheep A.

According to the website, scientists have also used this method of “nuclear transfer” to clone cows. However, instead of using an udder cell, they have found that using cells from the reproductive tract cretes a higher success rate. Scientists have also used a technique called “embryo splitting” to clone a monkey named Tetra. Here’s the step-by-step process for cloning Tetra:

1) fertilized an egg by injecting sperm
2) when the embryo divided into 8 cells, the split it into four identical two-cell embryos.

Unfortunately, only one embryo survived (Tetra). If the other embryos had survived, they would have been the clones of Tetra. In this procedure, Tetra would be a clone of her siblings, rather than her mother.

Also from cnn.com, I learned how scientists harvest stem cells. First, they inject sperm into an egg to create an embryo. This embryo divides into two cells and then 8 cells. By the fourth or fifth day the embryo is called a blastocyst. At this stage, it can either be implanted in a woman’s womb or frozen for later use. At this point stem cells can be removed. This removal process destroys the embryo and is the controversial part of cloning.) The stem cells are then cultivated in a lab and multiply indefinitely. They can be developed into tissues such as muscle cells and nerve cells.

I now understand why cloning is such a controversial issue. On one hand, stem cells have the potential to develop cures for diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons’s, heart diseases, and paralysis. On the other hand cloning can be interpreted as taking a life because when removing stem cells you kill the embryo. Some people consider this embryo to be a human being. I feel that if human cloning were made possible it would be beneficial, but not very tangible. Most scientists are saying that if cloning were legal they wouldn’t use it to clone armies or anything like that. The stem cells would only be used to cure diseases. This is very good. However, I don’t think many people would be able to afford such a luxury. Also, I’m beginning to realize that death is inevitable, so is there any reason to try to avoid it?

Beofre doing further research on this topic, I never realized how complicated cloning actually is. It will be interesting to see what happens when human cloning becomes a reality. I think eventually there will be a human clone, probably not in the USA. It’s going to be interesting to see how the world responds to such a miraculous discovery.