Ann Marie Schorr

Professor Christian Perring

ASC128C ‑ 24209

January 17, 2001

Oral Presentation on Human Cloning

Genetics today is on the cutting edge of biological science and scientists working in this area are involved in a wide variety of pursuits that will have profound implications for our future planet.

PROJECTS

1 . Creation of new biological entities. 2. Curing diseases. 1 Manufacturing synthetic versions of biological substances. 4 Identifying different genetic codes and what they do. 5. Finding a way to control genetic information.

A. Genetic information will enable scientists to produce with or without certain

characteristics:

I . Eliminate hereditary diseases.

Implant resistance to diseases genetically,

BIOGENETICS

1 . Geneticists already accomplished many things with grains, plants and certain farm

Animals. 2. Genetic splicing to create new forms of life for good or ill

A. Great resonsibility requiring experimentation and development to be conducted following ethical precepts.

B. Some people concerned about any and all forms of genetic engineering ‑ the danger too great ‑ especially the possibility of human cloning.

C. People can be supportive of gene splicing and recombinant DNA ‑ still oppose

human cloning.

1. They are linked.

2. Constitute a progression in scientific development.

Recombinant DNA ‑ see photocopy

1 , DNA molecules derived from different sources that have been artificially spliced

together in vitro to form hybrid DNA molecules not normally encountered in nature ‑

A, Offers the opportunity to transcend the limits imposed by nature on hereditary processes.

B. Scientists can manipulate genes individually by directly modifying the DNA molecules in which genetic information is encoded.

C. Potential to transform the genes of all species into a global resource ‑ use to shape novel life forms obedient to the scientist ‑ rather than dictates of natural selection. See 'YUCK MAN"

CLONE

1 . Derived from Greek "kion" meaning twig or slip.

2. Refers to asexual reproduction or vegetative reproduction.

3. Cloning ‑ production of one or more individual plants or animals (whole or in part) that are genetically identical to an original plant or animal.

4. Essential fact of sex in both plants and animals, is that hereditary material from two individuals are joined to form a new creature.

5. Sex cells provide diversity ‑ each offspring produced is unique in its combination of traits.

6. Cloning does not involve sexual reproduction ‑ clone is not the result of a union of different material.

7. Procedure called nuclear transplantation (or cloning), is well established for permitting asexual reproduction in amphibians ‑frogs, toads, and salamanders.

According to Leon Kass and James Wilson cloning can be discusses in three familiar

contexts: the technological, the liberal and the meliorist.

1 . Technological View‑ an extension of existing techniques for assisting reproduction and determining the genetic makeup of children. Cloning is to be regarded as a neutral technique, with no inherent meaning or goodness but subject to multiple uses, some good, some bad. Morality depends absolutely on the goodness or badness of the motives and intentions of the cloners.

2. Liberal or Libertarian Approach ‑ sets cloning in the context of rights, freedoms, and personal empowerment. A new option for exercising an individual's rights to reproduce or to have the kind of child that he or she wants ... cloning enhances our liberation (especially women's liberation) from the confines of nature ... of chance or the necessity of mating (only egg, nuclei and uten needed). The only moral restrains ‑ informed consent and the avoidance of bodily harm. Worries that go beyond violating the will or maiming the body are dismissed as symbolic ‑ which is to say unreal.

3. Melonst View ‑ embraces eugenics and valetudinarians. This group see in cloning

a new prospect for improving human beings minimally by ensuring the perpetuation of

healthy individuals by avoiding the risks of genetic disease inherent in the lottery of sex,

and maximally, by producing optimum babies preserving outstanding genetic material,

and (with the help of soon‑to‑come techniques for precise genetic engineering)

enhancing inborn human capacities in all areas. The morality is justified solely by the

excellence of the end, that is, by the outstanding traits of individuals cloned‑beauty, or

brawn, or brains.

4. Kass and Wilson View ‑prefers a deeper anthropological, social... ontological meaning bringing forth a new life. Cloning is a major violation of our natural right to engender the species and keeping the social aspect of relationships. They feel cloning is perverse, polluting, and the response of revulsion and horror by the general public, can only mean it is foul and violating.

Ethics, Cloning and Laws

I . Cloning raises questions: A. Genetic diversity B. Human identity C. Exploitation and patenting of human genes D. Antisocial ‑ political correctness ‑ limits potential E_ President Clinton appointed an 18 member panel ‑The Bioethirs Advisory Commission (NBAC) prohibiting to attempt research or clinical setting) to create a child through somatic cell nuclear transfer (human cloning). Five years.

Adult DNA Clonin

1 . Involves removing DNA from an embryo and replacing it with DNA from a cell removed from an individual.

2. Embryo is allowed to develop into a new human whose DNA is identical to that of the individual. (Dolly the Sheep)

3. If therapeutic cloning possible ‑ adult DNA cloning will probably be used as the first step in the procedure.

4. Embryo's stem cells would later be extracted and encouraged to grow into a human organ for transplant. A. Heart, liver, pancreas, lungs, skin from a sample of a person's DNA. B. Has not yet been accomplished in a lab or clinic. C. Must be encouraged to turn into specific cell types. D. Must be proven useful in treating patients with diseases, injuries or disorders. E. Transplanted tissue must develop normally and not be a risk to patient. F. If possible ‑ perfectly matched replacement organs ‑ no rejection. No donor. G. In 1998 United States disease advocates and scientific societies sent a letter to Congress urging them to support federal funding for stem cell research. H. No waiting. A new organ could be grown as needed. 1. Potential to cure, treat diseases and disorders.

5. December 1998, a South Korean team of researches claimed without producing scientific evidence, to have created a human embryo by cloning, using a donor cell from a thirty year old woman. The researchers halted their experiment after the embryo divided twice, into a total of four cells, to comply with Korea's national research ban on more fully developed embryos.

Randolfe Wicker

1 . Founder of Clones Rights Action Center

2. Slogan DOLLY LAMA ‑ OUR NEW SPIRITUAL LEADER

3. Testified at a NYS Senate hearing against a proposed bill to ban cloning

4. His decision to clone himself should not be the government's business or Cardinal O'Connor's, any more than a woman's decision to have an abortion ... cloning is highly significant ... it is part of the reproductive rights of every human being.

5. Appeals to homosexuals who are fearful of the discovery of a genetic basis for sexuality ‑ if people are led to abort on a genetic finding, the homosexual can survive through cloning.

6. His genotype will triumph, uToo bad Mr. Death... I got another go‑round ... Let's see what I can do this time out at the box."

IN CONCLUSION

1. Many arguments to the morality of cloning.

2. Animal rights activists see no difference between animals and humans.

3. Most of the population ‑ see benefits to medicine and science found in animal and plant cloning, cannot accept human cloning.

4. Long term effects on cloned animals ‑ would not answer challenges by cloned baby.

5. Science fiction ‑ portrays cloning as creating a carbon copy, an automation.

6. A clone ‑ is really ‑ one of a pair. Twins born at different times.

7. Identical twins are two separate people. So are clones.

8. Genetic information alone does not make the person.

9. Take into account environment and random events that become part of human development.

10. To ignore time, place, political events, friends, family, neighborhoods and love, is to say that none of these things had an influence on us. That is those of us who were conceived by one single sperm that fertilized an egg within our mother's womb.

11. End with Aristotle's plainness and efficiency. He offers us logical, sane advice. To avoid the extremes of behavior, we should choose the 'golden mean' or middle way, a mode of existence practiced by the virtuous man as a way of taming the excesses of appetite.