There are two commonly discussed types of human cloning: therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. Therapeutic cloning involves cloning cells from an adult for use in medicine and transplants, and is an active area of research. Reproductive cloning would involve making cloned humans, for couples wanting to have a child, but cannot naturally.
A third type of cloning called replacement cloning is a theoretical possibility, and would be a combination of therapeutic and reproductive cloning. Replacement cloning would entail the replacement of an extensively damaged, failed, or failing body through cloning followed by whole or partial brain transplant.[citation needed]
History
Although the possibility of cloning humans had been the subject of speculation for much of the twentieth century, scientists and policy makers began to take the prospect seriously in the 1960s.Nobel Prize winning geneticist Joshua Lederberg advocated cloning and genetic engineering in a seminal article in The American Naturalist in 1966 and again, the following year, in The Washington Post.[1] He sparked a debate with conservative bioethicist Leon Kass, who wrote at the time that "the programmed reproduction of man will, in fact, dehumanize him." Another Nobel Laureate, James D. Watson, publicized the potential and the perils of cloning in his Atlantic Monthly essay, "Moving Toward the Clonal Man", in 1971.[2]
The technology of cloning mammals, although far from reliable, has reached the point where many scientists are knowledgeable, the literature is readily available, and the implementation of the technology is not very expensive compared to many other scientific processes. For that reason Lewis D. Eigen has argued that human cloning attempts will be made in the next few years and may well have been already begun.
"By waiting until the first clone is among us or about to be born, we complicate the problem immensely and guarantee that we will not be able to have the national and international conversation and debate to arrive at particularly good decisions like using protection."
Notable cloning attempts and claims
- Dr. Panayiotis Zavos, a Greek-American fertility doctor, revealed on 17 January 2004 at a London press conference that he had transferred a freshly cloned embryo into a 35-year-old woman. On 4 February 2004, it emerged that the attempt had not worked and the woman did not become pregnant.
Popularization
There are two types of popularization of human cloning; the popularization that critiques its ethics and implications, and the ones that advocate its uses and benefits to society. Popular media has a strong hold on its coverage, and can sometimes sway views[citation needed]. In an article in the November 8, 1993 article of Time Magazine, cloning was portrayed in a negative way, modifying Michelangelo's Creation of Adam to depict Adam with five identical hands. Newsweek Magazine's March 10, 1997 issue also critiqued the ethics of human cloning, and included a graphic depicting identical babies in beakers. There are also many books that critique the ethics of human cloning. One such book is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which satirically describes a world in which gene therapy and human cloning have destroyed any sense of individuality. On the other hand, there are organizations that attempt to portray cloning more positively, through such ideas as organ donation from cloned species. Groups like these advocate human cloning's uses and benefits to the majority of societyhuman Cloning, clone, science, meditatione , pharmacy, cloning, cloning, clone, human, brain, cells,
