Cloning humans? Biological, ethical, and social considerations

Abstract

There are, in mankind, two kinds of heredity: biological and cultural. Cultural inheritance makes possible for humans what no other organism can accomplish: the cumulative transmission of experience from generation to generation. In turn, cultural inheritance leads to cultural evolution, the prevailing mode of human adaptation. For the last few millennia, humans have been adapting the environments to their genes more often than their genes to the environments. Nevertheless, natural selection persists in modern humans, both as differential mortality and as differential fertility, although its intensity may decrease in the future. More than 2,000 human diseases and abnormalities have a genetic causation. Health care and the increasing feasibility of genetic therapy will, although slowly, augment the future incidence of hereditary ailments. Germ-line gene therapy could halt this increase, but at present, it is not technically feasible. The proposal to enhance the human genetic endowment by genetic cloning of eminent individuals is not warranted. Genomes can be cloned; individuals cannot. In the future, therapeutic cloning will bring enhanced possibilities for organ transplantation, nerve cells and tissue healing, and other health benefits.

Training STEM Ph.D. Students to Deal with Moral Dilemmas

“…Therapeutic cloning refers to "the cloning of embryonic cells to obtain organs for transplantation or for treating injured nerve cells and other health purposes". Reproductive cloning involves "the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to obtain eggs that could develop into adult individuals" (Ayala 2015). Therapeutic cloning presents a moral dilemma because it would violate the moral rule "do not kill" as it is not possible to harvest stem cells from the early embryo for research or therapeutic purposes without simultaneously killing it in the process.…”

Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

“…[26] Another alternative is the method of obtaining a stem cell specific to a patient by a therapeutic cloning technique. [28][29][30] Especially, cloning, a method applied to livestock and laboratory animals in recent years can be used for therapeutic purposes, and since the clone-embryo and embryonic stem cells obtained after the procedure carry the same tissue matching genes as the person whose cells are used, the problem of rejection in the transplantation process can be abolished. [28,29] Scientists have shown that cloned embryos have a largely different genetic program than those obtained by normal fertilization.…”

“…[28,29] Scientists have shown that cloned embryos have a largely different genetic program than those obtained by normal fertilization. [30] Therefore, it is currently unknown whether stem cells obtained by the same technique will have such problems in the future. [30] Because of these unknown factors, human cloning studies has been banned in many countries including the United States of America, and legal sanctions and penalties have been imposed on those who conduct these studies.…”

“…[30] Therefore, it is currently unknown whether stem cells obtained by the same technique will have such problems in the future. [30] Because of these unknown factors, human cloning studies has been banned in many countries including the United States of America, and legal sanctions and penalties have been imposed on those who conduct these studies. [30] Recently, however, South Korean scientists have used cloning techniques for therapeutic purposes to obtain the first human embryonic stem cell strain.…”

“…[30] Because of these unknown factors, human cloning studies has been banned in many countries including the United States of America, and legal sanctions and penalties have been imposed on those who conduct these studies. [30] Recently, however, South Korean scientists have used cloning techniques for therapeutic purposes to obtain the first human embryonic stem cell strain. [31] This result has led to further exacerbation of ethical debates in all over the world.…”