Send in the Clones
Posted April 1st, 2002
One of this summer's biggest blockbuster movies was the Star Wars prequel Star Wars - Episode II: The Attack of the Clones. Part of the film's story revolved around
an alien race on the outskirts of the galaxy that builds an army of more than one million clones made from a bounty hunter named Jango Fett.
Meanwhile, in the real world, cloning is hitting the news again as President George W. Bush has demanded a permanent ban on human cloning for any purpose. The U.S.
House of Representatives has agreed with him.
Cloning efforts by today's scientists are not going to produce an army of clone troopers that we see in the movies. However, cloning is a process that is very real.
Cloning involves making a genetic copy of an organism by inserting DNA from an adult into an egg. The egg is then implanted into a female where it will develop as a normal embryo would.
Already, clones have been made of mice, cows, pigs, and sheep. It was a cloned sheep named Dolly that made the news in 1996 as the first clone of an adult mammal.
Human cloning has been debated and discussed since it was first suggested. Now that cloning technology exists, the issue has sparked new interest because it appears
that cloning a human is possible. In March 2001, at a scientific conference in Rome, fertility specialist Severino Antinori announced his intentions to make a human clone.
Since this point, there has been a national - and international - debate on the ethics of human cloning. Earlier this year, a bill was introduced to the U.S. Senate
that would put a ban on human cloning with a penalty of $1 million and up to 10 years in prison. The bill became controversial because it included exceptions for "regenerative medicine,"
which can be used to treat or cure Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes. This bill is currently stalled in Senate proceedings.
Cloning is no longer just a subject of science fiction. While science today cannot produce human clones as effortlessly and quickly as we see in the movies and
comic books, the process does exist. In the future, as science improves the process, many decisions will have to be made on whether cloning is appropriate or even ethical.
Activity
Use the Internet to research the history of cloning and its process. Write an entry in your Science Journal that explains your feelings on the ethics of cloning.
References
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