Cloning and Genectic Engineering

Cloning and Genetic Engineering have been around for half a century, and always it has never been what these sciences have to offer the world, it has always been the ethics behind genetic engineering and cloning that stops this technology from moving forward. Throughout this paper, I would like to discuss the different types of cloning and genetic engineering and what benefits they provide as well as the ethics they have destroyed along the way. Also, I want to describe the different processes and procedures that scientists have discovered to actually clone a human embryo and create “Dolly” the sheep.

First of all, I would like to speak about the process of and the differences between genetic engineering and cloning. Cloning is the process of producing genetically identical individuals through asexual reproduction. Currently, there are two different types of cloning. The first, blastocyst, or embryo splitting, consists of two to eight cells. At this stage in development, cells are not yet organized into different organ systems. Each cell is capable of reproducing and entire organism, which occurs naturally like that in twins or triplets. The second, nuclei transfer using embryonic and fetal cells, the nucleus of an early embryo is transferred to an unfertilized egg from which the original nucleus has been removed. (Boss pg. 135-137.)

Genetic engineering includes two different processes called gene therapy and gene enhancement. Gene enhancement involves the manipulation of the germ cell to improve the genetic code of a being. Gene therapy is when a new gene is introduced to override a defective gene. There are two different types of gene therapy, which consist of somatic cell therapy and germ line therapy. In somatic cell therapy, normal genes are introduced to produce something, such as an enzyme or protein that is lacking because of a genetic defect. Because somatic cell therapy is only a treatment, it does not get rid of the defective gene or change a person’s genotype. Therefore, the defective gene is passed down to future generations. Germ line therapy, in contrast, actually alters the genetic structure of germ line cells which is the sperm and the ova so that the genotype of future generations is also changed. It is even possible for them to create completely new chromosomes and genes, thus overriding the human genetic code itself. It is predicted that germ line therapy can be used to protect offspring from AIDS and certain types of cancer in the near future. (Boss pg. 134)

Now that I have defined what cloning and genetic engineering is, I would like to go into the ethics and moral issues behind it. Because most of the cultures in this world are highly influenced by religion and believe there is a higher being that created the universe and everything in it, cloning and genetic engineering has been construed as unmoral and unethical. It is said that cloning and genetic engineering are ways of trying to “play God.” If we look at the United States’ society as a whole, we are in a fast-paced, get it done, instant gratification world. We don’t want to take the time to have kids and raise a family. That is not the American dream anymore. We want a life-long career and a fat paycheck to buy “anything” our hearts desire. Why can’t one of those desires be a genetically perfect child or “designer baby?”

If we don’t take it to those extremes, we can only benefit from what cloning and genetic engineering have to offer. Some of the practical benefits that this technology offers are solutions to infertility, replacement children, replicating desirable genomes, genetic testing and gene therapy, prolonging human life, directing our evolution, agriculture, medicinal animals, genetically guided drugs, research tools, organ donors, and endangered and extinct species. With the exception of replacing children, all of these can be used without ethically injuring anything. Medically, I understand that there are some moral issues that arise. When the human embryos are cloned, some are defective and unusable so they are destroyed. This goes hand in hand with abortion. When is an embryo actually a being? Most people answer that it is conception. (Nossal, G. J. V.)

Another idea that has been toyed with is eugenics, which is a concept that Francis Galton came up with to describe the study of human improvement by genetic means. He wanted to control the way that our evolution turned out. Francis came up with a system called positive eugenics and negative eugenics. Positive eugenics was to have a male with desirable genes and female with the same desirable genes to reproduce and have large families. Negative eugenics was to ensure that people who were unfit and had undesirable genes were to reproduce less. This idea was proposed to change the direction of our society through planned evolution. Although eugenics is on a side note from genetic engineering and