“We’re just clones, sir. We’re meant to be expendable.” – Sinker
The concept of the legions of clone troopers that comprised the Grand Army of the Republic in Star Wars was one of the strongest aspects of the plot. Given that the Separatist army’s ranks were stocked with interchangeable hunks of trash, it’s not surprising that the clones thought themselves expendable. They were designed to be fighters.
Cloning is a method that scientists employ to create perfect genetic replicas of living creatures. Cloning can be used to duplicate anything from genes to cells to tissues to entire animals. It became plausible to imagine producing hundreds of cloned human children in the very near future after Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, near Edinburgh, successfully created Dolly the sheep from a ewe’s mammary cells in 1996. However, no human has yet been cloned. This is due in part to the difficulty of creating a viable clone. Genetic errors that prevent the clone from surviving can occur during each attempt. To get Dolly correctly, scientists made 276 attempts.
Gene cloning, reproductive cloning, and therapeutic cloning are the three basic types of cloning. Gene cloning is the process of making duplicates of genes or DNA segments. Reproductive cloning makes full animal replicas. Embryonic stem cells are created during therapeutic cloning. In order to repair damaged or unhealthy tissues in the human body, researchers want to employ these cells to generate new, healthy tissue. What benefits do we actually gain by cloning organisms with minimal genetic mistake, even if we do succeed in doing so? Some people would have the ability to truly resuscitate their dead relatives or even create new humans, while others are able to bring back to life their deceased pets or dead humans. The first cloned animal as a pet was a cat named CC in 2001. Cloning has the potential to revive extinct animals like the giant panda and woolly mammoth in the future.
But, if all of that is feasible, should it be implemented? Should it be done if all of these great things can become a reality? To my understanding, it is still not possible to clone an exact copy of you. But even if there is a slim likelihood of that happening, should it happen. No, in my opinion. Just because you have a weapon does not imply you should use it. There are these unlimited possibilities with the problem of clones in the future, and one thing is certain: we never know if they turn out evil or nice. Another reason is that you are influencing someone’s cognitive process, robbing him of the beauty of the human mind without his knowledge, because the majority of the objections against cloning are based on the absence of unique nuclear DNA in the child’s genome. A society in which genetic selection is conceivable would place a greater focus on each person’s or household’s socioeconomic means. Those who could afford cloning would effectively form their own class, while those who couldn’t would be rejected or ignored by the rest of society.
But, once again, there is a positive aspect to this. Cloned embryos can be transformed into stem cell factories. Stem cells are a sort of early cell that can develop into a variety of cells and tissues. They can be transformed into nerve cells to repair a damaged spinal cord or insulin-producing cells to cure diabetes.
I would want to claim that because of the writings of scientists, bioethicists, and other experts (mainly through journalists quoting those experts), people have come to understand that clones would not be particularly unique. They would never be an exact replica of a person who is or was alive. Even while I’d like to believe it, I have my doubts. In recent years, the idea that people listen to experts has not fared well. Cloning’s advantages and disadvantages show that, even if the research may be conducted ethically, societal repercussions still need to be taken into account. We cannot plan for all the unknowns that exist. On one’s health, there could be both favorable and unfavorable impacts.
Fazil, this was a really well written blog that I had a lot of fun reading. I really liked your Star Wars reference at the beginning to bring the reader in. I definitely agree with you that cloning humans is both unethical and unsafe, and that steps should probably be taken to limit this from happening.
I’ve always thought of cloning as something out a sci-fi movie (very out of reach), and as something that is unethical, but I can see how it can be a positive thing. But, as you mentioned, we have to analyze all societal and environmental repercussions. As of now, I don’t know if the pros would outweigh the cons.
Although I am quite unfamiliar to the Star Wars realm, I still really enjoyed your intro into the post. Like you had mentioned, cloning has a lot of ethic issues once you get over the already nearly-impossible scientific tasks of the manner. I think it would be really interesting to hear more in-depth about trials that scientists have already done like the cat and sheep cloning experiences you had mentioned. In my opinion, the outcomes of cloning seem unethical especially in terms of humans where you would clone an individual who are either still alive or who have passed away. And like you had already said, we can never really know the full outcomes until it’s too late.
I think you make a strong case for the comparison between Star War’s clone troopers and today’s cloning. I think it is very important that as scientists find new discoveries that we weigh how we want to use them as a society in the future.