Animal Cloning

Introduction and Background

Animal cloning, “just because we can doesn’t mean we should.” Animal cloning is a very intrusive and painful experience for the animals involved. Not only is it expensive but 97% of all attempts don’t produce a healthy clone and most of the clones born live die within the first thirty days.

Cloning of plants has been around for hundreds of years. When you grow a plant from a clipping of another that is cloning. Animal cloning is relatively new though. It has only existed since the 1960’s. Yes it may be 50 years old but it takes about one week plus the length of the pregnancy and it doesn’t always work so it takes about a year to produce a healthy clone.

Frogs were the first animals to be cloned using embryonic cells. By the 1980’s embryonic cell techniques were being used to clone other animals such as mice sheep and cows. By the 1990’s researchers had developed cloning methods that used adult animal cells. In 1996 a lamb was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. In 2000, researchers cloned a pig using an adult body cell, creating 5 little coned piglets.

Risks

Animal cloning comes with many risks to both mother and clone. Many of the cloned animals have heart rate failure, breathing and blood flow problems, along with enlarged and malformed organs. One of the most deadly risks is large offspring syndrome. LOS occurs in 50% of all clones and in less than 6% of naturally breed animals. It causes complications at birth and late term pregnancy loss. Another risk is premature death. Cloned animals rarely live for their full lifespan because of all of their medical problems. Dolly, the first successfully cloned sheep, died when she was 6 years old. A normal sheep lives for 12 years. Lastly 26% of clones develop hydrops. Hydrops is a very serious condition were large amounts of fluids build up in the body of a newborn or fetus. It can cause total body swelling, changes in skin color, breathing problems and heart failure and if left untreated it will cause death.

Most mothers of clones suffer because cloning is a very intrusive process. The labor can be very painful and there is late term pregnancy loss and the possibility of a C-section. All of that happens to an animal that didn’t have a choice of weather or not they wanted to be a surrogate mother.

Benefits

Animal Cloning has very few benefits. None of the benefits to humans are benefits to the cloned animals. One is modifying animals so that their organs can be transplanted into humans. We need more organs that can be implanted into humans because thousands of people die every year because there wasn’t an organ to replace theirs. Why should it be ok for an animal to die for a human to live if a human wont die for an animal to live? That is what scientists are doing. They change an organ from an animal into one that can be used by a human then kill the animal take its organs and give them to humans. No human would do that for an animal and even if they wanted to, they wouldn’t be allowed to because it would be considered inhuman.

Another benefit of cloning is to cure Alzheimer’s, which is a disease caused by death of certain brain cells. We can implant baby pig brain cells into a human’s brain to cure the disease.

Again we would be killing an animal for a human, and a baby animal of all animals. Those are 2 of the few benefits and why they are not benefits for the animals.

Gene Therapy

Gene therapy isn’t important for me right now because I don’t have any diseases that it would be able to cure. Over time I might develop a disease that needs gene therapy but nothing runs in my family so it would be unlikely. Since no diseases run in my family, gene therapy would not really affect my family. My community has hereditary diseases because we have had 2 people with cancer, and 1 heart attack. Gene therapy would benefit the people in my community because if they do have a hereditary disease they may need it to stay alive.

Technology

The technology would help anyone who needs it and fits the criteria to use it. It can also hurt everyone who uses it because it may not be safe. If you use an unsafe product there can be major effects. Also if the technology fails, the user may think they are healthy again but they may need medical help and never get it because they don’t think they need it.

Others against Animal Cloning

The majority of people are anti animal cloning because of the harm it causes to animals. There are many celebrities that are against this form of animal cruelty. Just a small list of them is: Ellen DeGeneres, Kristen Bell, Betty White, Kesha, Brad Pitt, Pink, Paul McCartney, and Bob Barker. The list goes on forever because so many people are against animal cruelty and animal cloning is animal cruelty. They all share my view because they believe in fair treatment to all life and not just wasting an animal’s life for a human to live.

Conclusion

“Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.” We have the technology to clone animals but that doesn’t mean that we should clone them. Animal cloning has many risks that are non-treatable and deadly. Along with the pain and suffering the surrogate mother had to go through to carry and deliver a cloned baby. There is way more risks to the animals than there are benefits to humans. I am not the only person who believes that animal cloning is animal cruelty; there are many celebrities who are against it as well. Not to mention the thousands of not famous people across the world that are also against it. Animal cloning is bad for animals and therefor should not happen.

References

Cloning Fact Sheet. (2014, April 28). Cloning Fact Sheet. Retrieved June 4, 2014, from http://www.genome.gov/25020028#al-10

What are the potential medical benefits of animal cloning? So far I have mostly read about the social problems cloning could create if applied to humans.. (1999, August 21). Scientific American Global RSS. Retrieved June 4, 2014, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-the-potential-me/

Famous Animal Activists, Celebrities Helping Animals, Celebrities Who Love Animals, Famous Animal Lovers, Celebrity Animal Lovers, Famous Animal Activists. (n.d.). Famous Animal Activists, Celebrities Helping Animals, Celebrities Who Love Animals, Famous Animal Lovers, Celebrity Animal Lovers, Famous Animal Activists. Retrieved June 4, 2014, from http://www.animalsmattertoo.com/celebrities.htm

Fast Facts About Animal Cloning : End Animal Cloning. (n.d.). Fast Facts About Animal Cloning : End Animal Cloning. Retrieved June 4, 2014, from http://www.endanimalcloning.org/factsaboutanimalcloning.shtml

What are the Risks of Cloning?. (n.d.). What are the Risks of Cloning?. Retrieved June 4, 2014, from http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/cloningrisks/