This document discusses the ethical issues surrounding human cloning. It begins by introducing a scenario where a couple is in a car accident and the husband is left in a vegetative state, unable to have children. The wife hears of cloning as a way to have his children. The document then defines human cloning as using somatic cell nuclear transfer to produce a genetically identical human. It outlines some potential medical benefits of cloning like organ transplants and rejuvenation, but also potential harms around individuality and genetic variation. Both sides of the ethical debate around cloning are presented, with arguments for allowing it to help infertile couples and further research, and against it due to unknown risks and its violation of natural reproduction. The document concludes that each

1. To Clone or not to Clone: The Ethical Question
Joseph Farnsworth
A couple that had been married for only two years was in a
terrible car accident. The
wife walked away with a few cuts and bruises. The husband,
however was unconscious
when the paramedics arrived. He went into a coma shortly after
arriving at the nearby
hospital. He came out of the coma but was never to be the same
again. It turns out that
when he was in the accident he had severe head trauma, and
would be a vegetable the rest
of his life. He could not take part in the reproduction of
children. The wife is now
distraught because they will never have children together. She
heard about the possibility
of cloning and believes that it is the only way that she will ever
have children. Is it so?
Introduction

2. The ethics of human cloning has become a great issue in the
past few years. The
advocates for both sides of the issue have many reasons to clone
or not to clone. This is
an attempt to explore the pros and cons of human cloning and to
provide enough
information of both sides of the arguments in order for the
reader to make their own
informed decision on whether human cloning is ethical or not.
Cloning will first be
defined. Then a brief explanation of why questions concerning
cloning humans have
arisen will be presented. Some things cannot be known for sure
unless it is tested, i.e.,
human cloning is allowed. Followed by that, a discussion of the
facts and opinions that
support cloning will be presented and then the same against
cloning. Please remember
that not all of this has proven true nor is able to be proven yet,
but has simply been
argued as a scientific hypothesis. Finally, my own personal
opinion will be stated.
Defining Human Cloning

3. When speaking of human cloning, what is meant? Different
groups and organizations
define it differently. To use a specific definition, the American
Medical Association
(AMA) defined cloning as “the production of genetically
identical organisms via somatic
cell nuclear transfer. „Somatic cell nuclear transfer‟ refers to
the process which the
nucleus of a somatic cell of an existing organism is transferred
into an oocyte from which
the nucleus has been removed” (Council on Ethical and Judicial
Affairs 1). In other
words, cloning is the method of produce a baby that has the
same genes as its parent.
You take an egg and remove its nucleus, which contains the
DNA/genes. Then you take
the DNA from an adult cell and insert it into the egg, either by
fusing the adult cell with
the enucleated egg, or by a sophisticated nuclear transfer. You
then stimulate the
reconstructed egg electrically or chemically and try to make it
start to divide and become
an embryo. You then use the same process to implant the egg
into a surrogate mother

4. that you would use with artificial insemination. (Eibert)
However, many groups have used a broader definition of
cloning. They include the
production of tissues and organs through growing cells or
tissues in cultures along with
the actual producing of embryos to be born. This is done with
the use of stem cells.
When an egg is fertilized and begins to divide, the cells are all
alike. As the cells divide,
certain cells differentiate and become the stem cells that
produce certain tissue and then
mailto:[email protected]
organs. Research in this very active. There is still much for
scientists to learn about cell
differentiation and how it works. To a clone an organ, a stem
cell must be produced and
then used to a clone that specific organ. For the sake of this
paper, both definitions will
be used in order to cover all opinions.
One must understand that cloning does not produce an exact
copy of the person being

5. cloned. What cloning does, is that it copies the DNA/genes of
the person and creates a
duplicate genetically. The person will not be a Xerox copy. He
or she will grow up in a
different environment than the clone, with different experiences
and different
opportunities. Genetics does not wholly define a person and the
personality.
How It All Started
In February 1997, when embryologist Ian Wilmut and his
colleagues at Roslin Institute in
Scotland were able to clone a lamb, named Dolly, the world was
introduced to a new
possibility and will never be the same again (Nash). Before
this, cloning was thought to
be impossible, but now there is living proof that the technology
and knowledge to clone
animals exist. Questions began to arise within governments and
scientific organizations
and they began to respond. Are humans next? Is it possible to
use this procedure to
clone humans also? Would anyone actually try? What can we
learn if we clone

6. humans? How will this affect the world? These are only a few
of the questions that have
surfaced and need answered. A whole new concept in ethics
was created when the birth
of Dolly was announced.
There are a great number of possible medical benefits and
disadvantages to cloning and
its technology. They include the following:
Potential Medical Benefits
• The possibility that through cloning technology we will
learn to renew activity
of damaged cells by growing new cells and replacing them.
• The capability to create humans with identical genetic
makeup to act as organ
donors for each other, i.e., kidney and bone marrow transplants.
• The benefit of studying cell differentiation at the same time
that cloning is
studied and developed.
• Sterile couples will be able to have offspring will have
either the mother‟s or

7. father‟s genetic pattern.
Potential Harms and Disadvantages
• The possibility of compromising individualities.
• Loss of genetic variation.
• A “black market” of fetuses may arise from desirable donors
that will want to
be able to clone themselves, i.e., movie stars, athletes, and
others.
• Technology is not well developed. It has a low fertility rate.
In cloning Dolly,
277 eggs were used, 30 started to divide, nine induced
pregnancy, and only one
survived to term (Nash).
• Clones may be treated as second-class citizens.
• Unknown psychosocial harms with impacts on the family
and society.
The Governments Make a Move

8. The governments went to work shortly after the cloning of
Dolly. They wanted to take
control and make laws before anything drastic could ever
happen. Several ethics
committees were asked to decide whether scientists should be
allowed to try to clone
humans. Many of the committees found the data displayed
above. In the United States,
the National Bioethics Advisory Commission recommended a
five-year moratorium on
cloning a child through somatic cell nuclear transfer (Council
on Ethical and Judicial
Affairs 1). In the state of Michigan, Governor Engler signed a
law last year making
human cloning illegal with harsh penalties if it is attempted
(“Governor Engler...”). In
the United Kingdom, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology
Authority (HFEA) and the
Human Genetics Advisory Commission (HGEC) have approved
human cloning for
therapeutic purposes, but not to clone children (“HFEA supports
Human Cloning in
U.K.”). Many organizations have come out and stated their
opinions also. Amongst all

9. this ethical defining, many people are being ignored by the
governments. People are
speaking out about what they want done.
Let Us Clone
After a couple has had their first child, to their disappointment
they become infertile and
cannot have more children. Cloning would enable such a couple
to have a second child,
perhaps a younger twin to the child they already have. This
example has a very good
argument. Many couples have difficulties having children, and
sometimes it is
impossible for couples to have children because they are
infertile. Cloning would allow
these couples to have children. Also, occasionally a woman is
born without a uterus or
has other complications and cannot produce eggs, then with the
help of a surrogate
mother, she can have a child of her own using her own DNA or
her husband‟s.
This and the example at the beginning are both arguments that
some have made in

10. promoting cloning. It is hard to tell someone that they cannot
use cloning to have
children when no other possible ways to produce offspring are
available. This is one
reason why it is difficult to decide if cloning is ethical or not.
The following are some of
the reasons why cloning should be allowed.
As just discussed, cloning can be used to help benefit those that
are sterile and cannot
have children through the normal, natural way. It is the desire
of most couples to have
children and when it is impossible to bare children of your own,
some are willing to do
anything to have a child. Cloning will allow them to have a
child or many children that
have the genetic pattern of one of the parents.
Through cloning, research can progress. It is hard to say what
we can learn from cloning
if cloning is not allowed. We possibly can learn more about
cell differentiation. We can
learn enough to produce human organs without having to

11. produce human beings. We
may develop technology to allow easier genetic testing and
fixing problems such as
spinal cord injuries, cancer, Tay-Sachs disease, and many more.
Cloning organs for organ transplants is one of the major
practical reasons that cloning
should be allowed. There is always a high demand for organs.
Some argue for the
cloning of humans to create spare body parts. Others talk of
just wanting to clone an
organ to replace a defective organ.
Rejuvenation is also a key argument for advocates of cloning.
Human cloning may one
day reverse heart attacks. Some scientists believe that by
injecting cloned healthy heart
cells into damaged heart tissue will lead to healing of the heart
(Human Cloning
Foundation). By combining the technology for cloning and the
technology for growing
human stem cells, conditions like Alzheimer=s disease,
Parkinson=s disease, and
degenerative joint disease may be curable. The possibilities are
endless and may be left

12. undiscovered if human cloning is banned.
Thou Shalt Not Clone
One of the main goals of the government is to protect human
life. Some people want the
government to regulate cloning and not allow it. Michigan=s
government believes this
and became the first government to place a ban on cloning. As
mentioned before, the
governor signed laws that prohibit engaging or attempting to
engage in human cloning.
A Michigan state senator, Mr. Bennett said, “This legislation
boils down to one thing:
Prohibiting the creation of human life for scientific research.
Human cloning is wrong; it
will be five years from now; and wrong 100 years from now!”
(“Governor Engler...”)
Producing clones for research or to use their parts is unethical.
It would be against the
code of ethics of a doctor to harm a clone (i.e., use it for an
organ transplant). The clone
would be a human being and deserve all the rights and
privileges that a non-cloned
human has. A clone should not be a second-class citizen. It is

13. speculated that they would
be considered as such.
The American Medical Association holds four points of reason
why cloning should not
take place. They are: 1) there are unknown physical harms
introduced by cloning, 2)
unknown psychosocial harms introduced by cloning, including
violations of autonomy
and privacy, 3) impacts on familial and societal relations, and
4) potential effects on the
human gene pool (Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs 4-6).
We just simply do not
know the harms that will come from cloning.
Cloning would lead to the loss of individuality because one=s
genetic predispositions and
conditions would be known. If raised by a clone-parent or as a
sibling to the cloned, one
may have great expectations to live up to. However, the human
clones could differ
greatly in personality and even grow up with different
conditions than the cloned. Even

14. monozygotic twins differ. This could be a great stress to the
clone and possibly even the
loss of ability to chose for itself (Council on Ethical and
Judicial Affairs 5).
The long term genetic effects of cloning may cause more
problems than can be imagined.
The question of what can go wrong in cloning needs to be
discussed. In an evolutionary
standpoint, cloning is not good. Evolution relies on a continual
mixing and matching of
genes to keep the gene pool alive (McCormack). With cloning,
the natural process of
selection of genes would be bypassed and evolution would be
impaired. The Council of
Ethical and Judicial Affairs for the AMA stated the following
concerning possible
problems with mutations and clones:
Since the somatic cell from which clones originate likely
will have acquired mutations, serial cloning would
compound the accumulation that occurs in somatic cells.
Although these mutations might not be apparent at the time

15. of cloning, genetics problems could become exacerbated in
future generations. (Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs
6)
We can see that cloning can possibly change the gene pool from
how we now know it.
Most likely, it would not be a good change.
Technology as we presently know it will not effectively support
the cloning of humans.
As mentioned before, the success rate was quite low when
cloning Dolly. Only one of
the 277 tries succeeded, see chart 1. The same problems of the
difficulty of having the
fertilized egg implant parallels with that in in vitro fertilization.
Technology has not yet
been able to provide an answer to this problem.
The fear that clones will be treated as second-class citizens is
also present. If a clone is
created to act as bone marrow or kidney donor, the question
arises if they would be
treated like the first child? Would the parents even love this

16. child the same? If not, this
would lead to negative self-esteem and/or other physiological
problems.
There is also the fear that some would want to clone people to
create large armies of the
same soldier or even produce large amounts of workers. This
would also lead to the
creation of a second and lower class for clones.
From a Latter-day Saint point of view, the Proclamation on the
Family clearly does not
agree with cloning. The Proclamation states: “We . . . declare
that God has commanded
that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only
between man and woman,
lawfully wedded as husband and wife. We declare the means by
which mortal life is
created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life
and of its importance in
God‟s plan.” (Italics added) In other words, the power to
create humans is only to be
used in a marriage between husband and wife. Cloning only
involves one parent,

17. therefore it is not following God‟s plan in which a man‟s sperm
and a woman‟s egg are
needed to create life.
My Personal Recommendation
As a student studying biology, I have tried to approach both
sides and approach them
with an unbiased opinion. I personally think that the world of
genetics is fascinating, but
after learning of what is now possible through technology, I
changed my mind about
pursuing a career in the field. I see cloning as a wonderful
advancement in technology
and knowledge. I do not think it should be used to reproduce
humans though. I do not
believe that we should try to develop other ways beside the
natural way to bring life into
this world. I strongly believe that God created us and that we
are subjected to His laws
and must obey. The laws of God that have the worst
punishment deal with bringing life
into the world and taking life out of the world. I believe that

18. cloning people would fall
under these laws also.
Cloning tissues and organs falls under a different category that
cloning human beings. I
think it would be advantageous to science and medicine to clone
tissues and organs.
However, the research in this involves fetal tissue which is a
completely different ethical
discussion. I do not know enough about the procedure be
against it. So, with my present
understanding I would allow cloning for tissues and organs.
Conclusion
Cloning can revolutionize the world and the way we live or it
may be so minimal that it
would not affect us at all if it is allowed. [Two sentences taken
out during update.] Is
this the world you want to live in? Each person individually
must decide for himself or
herself if they believe that cloning should be allowed or if the
governments should
intervene with it.

19. paper cannot be reproduced without
consent of its author.
- Back to Top-
Works Cited
Alton, David. Send on the Clones. no date.
<http://www.match.org.uk/articles1.html> (No longer on line.)
Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, American Medical
Association. Report 98:
The
Ethics of Human Cloning. Jun 1998. Unpublished Report.
Online Posting.
<http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/upload/mm/369/report98.pdf>
Eibert, Mark D. Human Cloning: Myths, Medical Benefits
and Constitutional Rights.
1999. <
http://www.humancloning.org/users/infertil/humancloning.htm>
Governor Engler Signs Legislation to Ban Human Cloning.
1999.
<http://www.euthanasia.com/clone4.html>

20. HFEA supports Human Cloning in U.K.. no date.
<Http://www.globalchange.com/clonehfea.htm>
Human Cloning Foundation. The Benefits of human cloning.
1998.
http://thefarnsworths.com/science/cloning_m.htm#top
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/upload/mm/369/report98.pdf
http://www.euthanasia.com/clone4.html
http://www.globalchange.com/clonehfea.htm
<http://www.humancloning.org/benefits.htm>
McCormack, Chris. To Err is Human, but to Clone One
Divine?. 21 Jan 2000.
<http://www.Thelabrat.com/review/humancloning.shtml>
Nash, J. Madeliene. The Age of Cloning. Online Posting.
Time. 10 Mar 1997. vol.
149 no. 10.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Salt Lake City,
UT: The First Presidency
and Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.

21. 23 Sep1995.
Additional Works Referenced
Human Cloning Foundation. All the Reasons to Clone
Human Beings. 1998.
<http://www.humancloning.org/allthe.htm>
Human Cloning Foundation. The First Cloned Human
Embryo. 1998.
<http://www.humancloning.org/firsthumanclone.htm >
Kluger, Jeffery. Will We Follow the Sheep? Online Posting.
Time; 10 Mar 1997. vol.
149 no.10.
Steinberg, Avraham. Human Cloning - Scientific, Moral and
Jewish Perspectives. No
date.
<http://www.ijme.org/Content/Transcripts/Steinberg/scloning.ht
m>
http://www.humancloning.org/benefits.htm

22. http://www.thelabrat.com/review/humancloning.shtml
http://www.lds.org/
http://www.humancloning.org/allthe.htm
http://www.humancloning.org/firsthumanclone.htm
Biotechnology
The following lesson deals with the issues resulting from our
use of biotechnology. While
biotechnologies have been used since the brewing of beer by the
Sumerians in 1750 BCE,
science and technology have created many new possibilities and
ethical concerns related to the
wide scale use of biotechnologies that involve cloning and gene
manipulation. Please read the
following introductory material, and then read all of the active
links to seven short articles
provided at the end of this lesson. Then prepare one dialogue
aid sheet for Monday’s class.
What is a cell?
Cells are the basic building blocks of all living things. The
human body is composed of trillions of
cells. They provide structure for the body, take in nutrients
from food, convert those nutrients
into energy, and carry out specialized functions. Cells also
contain the body’s hereditary
material and can make copies of themselves.
Cells have many parts, each with a different function. Some of
these parts, called organelles,
are specialized structures that perform certain tasks within the

23. cell.
What is DNA?
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in
humans and almost all other
organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same
DNA. Most DNA is located in the
cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small
amount of DNA can also be found in
the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or
mtDNA).
The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four
chemical bases: adenine (A),
guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA
consists of about 3 billion bases, and
more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people.
The order, or sequence, of
these bases determines the information available for building
and maintaining an organism,
similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a
certain order to form words and
sentences.
DNA bases pair up with each other, A with T and C with G, to
form units called base pairs. Each
base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate
molecule. Together, a base, sugar,
and phosphate are called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are arranged
in two long strands that form a
spiral called a double helix. The structure of the double helix is
somewhat like a ladder, with the
base pairs forming the ladder’s rungs and the sugar and
phosphate molecules forming the

24. vertical sidepieces of the ladder.
An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make
copies of itself. Each strand of
DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating
the sequence of bases. This is
critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have
an exact copy of the DNA
present in the old cell.
DNA is a double helix formed by base pairs attached to a sugar-
phosphate backbone.
What is Recombinant DNA (rDNA)?
Recombinant DNA (rDNA) is a technology that uses enzymes to
cut and paste together DNA
sequences of interest. The recombined DNA sequences can be
placed into vehicles called
vectors that ferry the DNA into a suitable host cell where it can
be copied or expressed.
Recombinant DNA is therefore artificially constructed by
combining genes from different
organisms or by cloning chemically altered DNA for the
purpose of genetic manipulation.

25. Why is rDNA important?
Recombinant DNA has been gaining in importance over the last
few years, and recombinant
DNA will only become more important in the 21st century as
genetic diseases become more
prevalent and agricultural area is reduced. Below are some of
the areas where Recombinant
DNA will have an impact.
combinant Vaccines (i.e. Hepatitis B)
heir own insecticides
Stem Cells for Cell-Based Therapies (Lauren Pecorino)
Designer Babies: Ethical Considerations (Nicholas Agar)
Primer on Ethics and Human Cloning (Glenn McGee)
Ethical Issues in Genetic Engineering and Transgenics (Linda
MacDonald Glenn)
Genetic Testing to Predict Disease: Ethical, Legal, and Social

26. Implications (ELSI) (Linda
MacDonald Glenn)
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pecorino2.html
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotechnology/agar.html
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotechnology/mcgee.html
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotechnology/glenn.html
http://www.actionbioscience.org/genomics/glenn2.html
The material contained within this folder is for module 5. This
will deal with issues related to biotechnology and cloning.
This technology offers both hope and dangers for society. The
following pages in your textbook provide great background and
some of the social and ethical issues associated with these
technologies ( pp. 189 - 244). For this assignment, you must
write a 6 page position paper to illustrate your views on
biotechnology and/or cloning. Be sure to provide me with a
reference page (this will not count towards your 6 page
requirement). Remember to only a Microsoft Word
document. Let me give you some examples of what could be
done:
· It could be illustrated how these technologies may help in the
decline of species or help to solve food production problems.
· You can take a positive perspective or a negative perspective
on this technology (be sure to illustrate why).
· One could illustrate why certain technologies should be
investigated and possibly adopted, while others would be off
limits.
· It could be illustrated why these technologies offer hope for
human survival.
· You could illustrate how these technologies can be used to
bring back former species that have been lost (negative and
positive consequences)

27. · Once could illustrate how this technology could be used to
limit human diseases and suffering.
The above list is only a few suggestions, but many more
possibilities exist.