Cloning

How cloning works
Cloning, also called somatic cell nuclear transfer, is a process of bypassing sexual reproduction and using science to produce a genetic twin of an organism. In this process, the nucleus of a somatic cell (any body cell other than an egg or sperm) is placed in an unfertilized egg cell where the nucleus has been removed. A small electric jolt is then used to stimulate the development of this being.

If the embryo survives for 5-6 days in culture, its fate depends on the goals of the research. If the researcher wants the embryo to be born, then the embryo is placed in a surrogate womb and continues to develop. If the researcher wants to experiment on the embryo, the embryo is disposed of and its life is ended when it is no longer useful.

Even though cloning was once considered science fiction, it became a reality on February 27, 1997. On this date, English scientists announced that they had used the somatic cell nuclear transfer process described above to create a cloned sheep named Dolly. In this experiment it took 277 attempts at cell manipulation and 29 embryo implants before Dolly was born. This means that 276 sheep embryos, fetuses and newborns died to create a single sheep.

Cloning which isn't therapeutic
With the emergence of embryonic stem cell research, the term "therapeutic cloning" has been introduced into the debate surrounding human cloning. Besides being linguistically misleading, this term seems to indicate there is more than one type of cloning, but the only difference between so-called therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning is the clone's purpose in life. While reproductive cloning tries to create a being whose purpose is to be born, therapeutic cloning tries to create a being whose only purpose in life is to be killed for medical research.

Some biotechnology companies hope to use cloning as a way of mass producing human embryos in order to remove their stem cells. Embryonic stem cells aren't from a person's own body so they face the risk of the patient's body rejecting them. Researchers had hoped to get around this problem by using cloning to create embryonic clones of patients and then kill the clones in order to harvest their stem cells. Unfortunately, this "therapy" isn't very helpful to the unborn child whose only utilitarian purpose in life is to be sacrificed for the patient.

This method of "therapy" is another step in the attempt to destroy the sanctity of human life. Humans are no longer unique individuals with inalienable rights, but we are becoming disposable products that can be experimented on and then thrown away when we are no longer useful. "Therapeutic cloning" allows scientists to hide behind the guise of helping sick people while concealing the fact that the "therapy" was created through the destruction of living human embryos.

Human cloning failure
While ten of millions of dollars have been spent on human cloning, researchers haven't been able to extract embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo. A researcher from South Korea named Hwang Woo-Suk made headlines in 2004 and 2005 by claiming his lab was able to create cloned human embryos and extract embryonic stem cells from these embryos. His research was published in the prestigious journal Science, and he was lauded as a national hero in South Korea. This came to a screeching halt in December of 2005 when his university determined Hwang's research was fabricated. He was eventually fired in March of 2006. The South Korean government and private donors had poured tens of millions of dollars into this cloning research which didn't produce anything close to treatments.

The egg problem
Cloning human embryos for research will never save millions of lives. In order for this research to cure millions of people, scientists who attempt to clone and kill human embryos would need to get their hands on hundreds of millions of human eggs which would require tens of millions of women to agree to go through the process of donating eggs.

South Korean researchers who falsely claimed to have cloned human embryos used more than 2,000 human eggs over a three year span and were never able to create a cloned human embryo or acquire embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo. Two thousand human eggs is more eggs than most researchers could ever dream of obtaining.

Advanced Cell Technology, a biotechnology company hoping to clone and kill human embryos for stem cells, noted in a June 2006 Boston Globe article they'd been trying to recruit women for 6 months to donate eggs for research. The small group of women who responded to the advertisements decided against donating after learning of the potential risks.

Women who may consider donating their eggs for research purposes face several physical risks that include bleeding, scarring and pelvic swelling. The donation process requires self-injections of powerful hormones to boost the production of eggs. If these hormones produce too many eggs, they can cause hyperstimulation syndrome, which can lead to strokes.