Why Animal Cloning and Its Funding Should Be Stopped

Man’s best friend has become scientists’ guinea pig. Over and over again, scientists have pushed the government for public funding towards animal cloning. However, animal cloning is morally wrong. Cloning animals is just as inhumane and grotesque as cloning humans is. Scientists also do not know enough information on the safety of cloning, and there is much room for possible mutations and diseases to occur during the process. Animals are lovable and caring beings with life and feelings and do not deserve to be replicated, in any way possible. They do not deserve to be treated as science experiments and used as puppets for our show. Most individuals wish to use cloning for selfish reasons, such as cloning pets to replace their losses. Cloning is inhumane because it ruins the purpose of having uniqueness among animals and infringes on their rights as living creatures.

In the biological aspect, animal cloning has a variety of factors that can affect the cells’ growth and development, and leaves room for diseases and mutations to occur. If scientists clone an animal, they cannot be certain of what mutations it may have because of different factors that may affect the cells it manipulates during the process. Even if the clone is successful, it may take many failed attempts to create the actual clone. Dolly the sheep was the first domestic mammal to be cloned from a somatic cell. It took 227 attempts of nuclear transfer to create a nucleic cell, and one successful creation that resulted in Dolly (Klotzko, 286). This shows that there were many failed attempts that did not succeed. This could be a number of events: death during the transfer, or even after being “born”. Scientists must also be able to focus for hours on hand, trying to create the cell while relaxed. This takes intense training, and one must be focused and relaxed at the same time. One of the scientists said that she and her team of manipulative experts were so bored of waiting for the cell to develop that they would gossip or talk to pass the time (Flam). The lack of attention causes more margins for defects in the cloned cell, wasting large amounts of resources and funding. By using the replication of a cell to create a living creature, the chance of it producing a successful clone is very small. The marginal benefit of cloning a cell does not exceed the marginal costs of the cell actually creating a living creature, such as Dolly. It takes much time and countless number of effort to reproduce a living being. This also does not take into account of the financial aspects. Cloning takes very large amount of focus and attention, and requires much money. It costs approximately twenty thousand dollars to clone a cow (Mott). It would cost approximately the same or even more to clone a sheep. This does not include the research and other costs. We should not fund cloning research because doing so would not benefit us . Even if we do gain information from this, we may have the incentive to clone humans. This idea is not viable because the world already has a overpopulation problem, and the health concerns with cloning animals will be painfully apparent if human clones are produced. The cloning of animals is very dangerous to the health of the clone we created, and a numerous amount of side effects have surfaced throughout these experiments.

The cloned animal may also experience many health issues. It may not live as long as the average animals of its species because the cloned cell may be from an adult of the species, in addition to the adverse biological effects that may come from cloning. There may be several factors that may lead the cloned animal to its death or genetic defects. It may also carry a variety of diseases that may originate from the defects in the functions of different cells. For example, an abnormality in the function of the mitochondria may lead to a disease, and because this may cause many other diseases in the later functions of the cloning process (Wilmut and Highfield, 134) The cloned animal may have many other birth defects , especially those of vital organs that may be caused from the cloning process. This may include liver, brain, and heart problems, problems with the immune system, and irregular replication of cells. In many cases, the cloned animal may only live up to 50% of the average animal’s age span (Cloning Fact Sheet). These are the various adverse effects that can occur when cloning animals which we know of today.

Cloning living creatures could eventually lead to many mishaps. Even though scientists have cloned animals before, they are still unsure about the actual safeness that cloning. Ever since the first animal clone has been created, human cloning has been a question. Since there are many adverse effects of animal cloning such as those previously stated, knowing what sort of problems will affect human cloning is difficult. They are undoubtedly going to be worse, as physical and psychological defects are more obvious due to our understanding of humans as opposed to animals such as sheep. Even so, it is unclear how to replicate a human by cloning. Since clones are already predetermined by the donor, it seems almost useless to clone a human given their biological reactions and behaviours. Because clones already know what happened to them previously, they will not have to work as hard as their predecessor, which will change the clone’s life. When we clone living organisms, this is basically replicating another one of that specific organism and thus, isn’t really natural because it is done artificially, in a lab and is inhumane. Cloning is also an immoral act. The cloned living beings may feel like they are spending their entire lives in a prison cell. A living being should live a life free from being locked up in a cell. When scientists clone cells, and if they are successful, the cloned being will be inspected almost its whole life. Scientists will wonder how this creature will react to certain things, and treat this clone as a science experiment rather than an actual living creature. In the case of humans, this will affect their psychological, as well as their social behaviour (Morales). They will wonder where they originated from, where they were born. They may have behavioural issues because of their anger and confusion. Animals may also act in a similar fashion. Cloned animals may feel intimidated at first because of the number of people in the institute or laboratory in which it is born. They may not be used to people staring at them. In addition, cloned animals are almost always kept in the laboratory in constant inspection. Therefore, they may not get to live the animal lifestyle of being loved and cared for, having people to play with. In the example of Dolly the sheep, she was born, raised, and died in the Roslin Institute, where she was also cloned. She was almost never let outside to roam free, maybe only on a leash. Cloned animals do not get to live the full being of being its kind. They are also not unique because it is simply a replica of the original, and does not have unique features. However, they may act differently, but they are physically the same. This takes away the individuality that we have.

However, there is the belief that animal cloning is good because owners’ do not want their pets to die. Although this is a decent reason to clone animals, it is not the natural way that nature works. It is natural to bear an animal, but it is not natural to create an animal from a somatic cell, such as the creation Dolly. Nature does not need scientists hunting for new animals to clone because we already have enough as it is. This method of creating such things is much like that of Mary Shelley’s book, Frankenstein. It seems as though we are creating something living from something so small, so dead. It would be much more natural to have an actual living, breathing animals free of diseases because of a mess-up in its genetic manipulation, rather than a utopic animal, who carries many manipulated cells and formed from a test tube. Pet owners love their animals for their behaviour, and not just its looks. Owners will remember their memories with their pets. When the animal is cloned, it is very unlikely that it will act and behave the same way, and owners cannot remember the pet for its memories that it had with the owner. The clone cannot literally replace the original pet because there will be a few minor differences. There will obviously be more differences in the way it acts and behaves, as time passes by. It may look the same as a baby, but it may mature and start to grow differently. Therefore, Cloning pets may not be the best idea because of the differences of the pet and the pet’s clone.

Animal cloning should not be continued because it is not beneficial, and is not justifiable. Whether it is cloning a deceased pet or for research purposes, cloning is wrong. Animals deserved to be nurtured and cared for, not experimented and observed. Living creatures do not need to be cloned because this does not agree with the idea of individuality and goes against both nature and the rights of the animals themselves. It would be inhumane to give life to something that will live in pain due to potential defects and health issues. There is no need for cloning new living creatures because it is inefficient. Nature already has a system of reproduction to sustain our ecosystem and it is that cycle’s duty to produce living creatures, and not scientists.