Cloning

8 Pages 1910 Words

Cloning: How far will it go?
Everyday people find themselves at a crossroads that requires a decision as to which path to follow. In the past few years, scientists have gained knowledge about cloning that could impact our lives for centuries to come. As a society we are at a crossroads and we will have to decide how to use this knowledge. Will we choose to increase our power over nature or will we develop a partnership? There are many benefits of cloning, but do they outweigh the possibility of losing genetic diversity, facing genetic discrimination, and the scary consequences portrayed in science fiction books like Brave New World and 1984, and movies like Gattaca and Planet of the Apes.
Cloning is the production of a genetically identical duplicate of an organism (Hawley). In a sense, many plants, algae, unicellular organisms, and even humans naturally produce identical offspring. For example, the dandelion reproduces asexually to create a copy of itself. As a species it has reached a plateau and can no longer progress. Within the human species, identical twins are essentially clones. The division of the embryo produces two embryos with the exact same genetic information. The consequence of a species only producing asexually is the loss of genetic diversity, which can have adverse effects on a species.
There is a gray area between the benefits and the problems of cloning. Some people

may say that anything that improves the lives of humans is a benefit, but I disagree. Human cloning needs to be restricted. If taken to the extreme, human cloning could be disastrous to mankind. First of all, asexual reproduction creates a population with the same genetic information which eliminates genetic diversity. Without diversity, one disease could wipe out the whole population because no person would be able to fight a disease any better than anyone else. In Brave New World, the author writes about makin...