The negative impacts of cloning

The negative points of cloning greatly outweigh the positive. This is proved by the fact that cloning is currently illegal in Australia, so other people must feel the same way.

With plant cloning, the genetic makeup is the same for each clone made from the same DNA. If the original DNA has a disease, all of the clones will have it too. Plant clones will also be vulnerable to the same diseases and environmental factors as the original plant. This means that if all the cloned plants are in one area together and one plant gets a disease there is a very high chance all of the other plants are going to get the disease too.

Another disadvantage is that plants might not be able to reproduce normally as they were not made as other natural plants were. This would mean that cloning would need to be a permanent way of plant reproduction, so it would not necessarily be a solution to plant reproduction.

If cloning of animals was done on a large scale there would be no variation in animals and the current theory of evolution, natural selection would no longer exist. (Natural selection is when the animal best suited to the environment survives i.e. ‘survival of the fittest).

If human cloning was made legal in Australia it would have many negative impacts on society. It would have a significant effect on the religious community as it may conflict with religious beliefs. For example many religious groups believe that human clones would not have a soul and that removing the nucleus from the cell is murder. Religious group may also be opposed to the fact the human cloning would mean gay/lesbian couples would be able to have children together. It can also be thought that cloning is like “playing God.” The clergymen believe that people do not have to right to change God’s will which what they think cloning will do.People in society in general may also think human cloning is unethical, unnatural and a violation against human rights.

As you leave bits of your skin and DNA everywhere you touch anyone would be able get your DNA and clone you without you knowing. This is not only a violation of your rights it can have devastating consequences. It would also be possible to make army’s of clones which would greatly impact the safety of innocent people.

If human cloning became a common process society would be broken down into two classes; the people who are “naturally reproduced” and then the people who are clones. There would also be a division between the rich and poor. People who are able to afford to have humans cloned would be separated between people who are unable to afford it.

With Human cloning parents would also be able to choose what their child would look like. There would then be an unnecessary emphasis and pressure on the physical characteristics of a child. Children who have not been cloned may have lower self esteem or feel more self conscious. Human cloning would reduce genetic diversity. Human cloning is just copying and producing identical genes, which means it will decrease the diversity of genes. If we were able to choose which humans to “create” it would reduce the variety of people and therefore the natural order of the world.

There is also a huge risk that human clones would not be healthy or normal. Previous clones have been known to die mysteriously. Human clones would also have a reduced lifespan as there DNA would be aged the same as the person it has been taken from. It would not be fair to bring someone into life knowing that they would be vulnerable to mysterious deaths and a shorter lifespan. If the clone is made from their parents DNA they may also suffer emotional problems when they discover that they are clones of their parents!

Only 2% of cloning attempts are successful and it took 277 attempts to clone Dolly, the first cloned sheep. This shows that a lot of time and effort is needed to clone.

Finally, all types of cloning cost a great deal of money and all of the Government funds would change dramatically to accommodate the experiments. The government and science facilities would have to purchase technology and resources in order to clone and if they were to clone they would have to face and provide solutions to all the negative aspects to cloning.

Bibliography

http://www.humancloning.org/allthe.php

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0122429/ethics/advantages.htm

http://science.howstuffworks.com/human-cloning1.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0122429/ethics/disadvantages.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning