Should humans use stem cells to clone for necessary genes?
The use of embryonic stem cells in laboratory research has been a hot topic over the years. Some people will argue that it can help rid of certain diseases and genetic disorders, while others will argue that it is unethical and has too low of a success rate to be trialed on over and over again. I support the latter of the two arguments. I believe stem cell cloning should be stopped as soon as possible.
A quick overview of exactly how the process of cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer, works. Essentially what happens is a female egg cell has its nucleus removed and replaced by the nucleus of a regular body cell, aka a somatic cell. The somatic cell's nucleus is practically re-programmed to the egg cell's body, and the cell will now start dividing. After there are a couple hundred haploid cells, the new body is an embryo with a genetic makeup that is almost identical to that of the original somatic cell.
Why is this such a bad thing if it can help researchers cure diseases?
- The chances that the embryo will make it to the adult stage is extremely slim. Dolly the Sheep, for instance, was a clone. She was modified along with 277 other sheep cells. Only 29 of those cells made to the embryonic stages Of those 29 embryos, only 3 made it to the stage of birth. Dolly was the only one to make it to the adult stage. Once an adult sheep, Dolly physically matured to fast and died of a cellular disorder at age 6.
- It is unethical to take a human egg, which is a possible human life, turn it into an embryo, another possible human life, genetically modify it and test it to see if you can cure diseases. It's similar to setting up a lab of humans and testing harmful chemicals on them.
- An eventual overuse of reproductive cloning could replace natural sexual reproduction altogether, then everything would be genetically modified. Having a world full of genetically modified individuals would alter the way God and nature intended one to be.
Debate Reflection: I think the debate went fairly well. Some of the questions caught me off guard, to the point that I had to kind of wing it. But overall, I felt confident with what I was talking about. I actually enjoyed doing this research. Honestly, I like doing debates and speaches. I like to fight for what I believe in, even though I actually don't believe in the stopping of stem cell cloning.
BiBLiOGRAPHY
Manske, Magnus. "Somatic cell nuclear transfer." Wikipedia. 2003. Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_cell_nuclear_transfer.
Stem Cells: The Ethics of Cloning. Films for the Humanities & Science: 2009, Film.
Hanna, Kathi. "Cloning/Embryonic Stem Cells." Genome. Apr 2006. Web. 24 Feb 2010. http://www.genome.gov/10004765.
