Cloning Needs to Be Illegal This paper was written for the purpose of proving why a social issue must be changed.

Essay by anhughes April 2004

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Cloning Needs to be Illegal

In June 1993, Steven Spielberg's film, Jurassic Park, introduced a worldwide audience to the concept and imagined consequences to cloning. The concept of cloning was simplified to the point that not only did it look acceptable it appeared to be realistically possible. Science was already working on breaking down the entire genetic sequence for human DNA, cloning seemed the next logical step. The one important message that is many times lost behind the movie's special effects and the storyline is the probing question asked by the character Dr. Ian Malcolm, a chaotician, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think about if they should"(Jurassic Park).

Cloning, in scientific terms, means to make an exact copy of a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequence. A clone is said to have all descendants of the genome derived asexually from a single individual.

There are three different procedures of cloning: embryo cloning, adult DNA cloning (reproductive cloning), and therapeutic cloning. Embryo cloning is the technique that produces twins or triplets. One or more cells are removed from a fertilized embryo and encouraged to develop into one or more duplicate embryos. Twins or triplets are thus formed, with identical DNA. In therapeutic cloning the embryonic stem cells are removed from the pre-embryo with the intent of producing tissue or a whole organ for transplant back into the person who supplied the DNA. The pre-embryo dies in the process. The goal of therapeutic cloning is to produce a healthy copy of a sick person's tissue or an organ for transplant. However the type of cloning that deserves the most concern with human research is reproductive cloning (www.religoustolerance.org)

If human cloning research continues, scientists plan to use the somatic cell nuclear transfer. A somatic cell...