The Three Many Factors And Implications Of Reproductive Cloning

On July 5th, 1996, Dolly, the first ever cloned sheep, was born through a reproductive cloning method known as somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT (Vos). SCNT involves taking an ovum that has had its nucleus removed, injecting a nucleus from a donor, and then developing the cell into a full, genetically identical organism to the donor through a surrogate (Stocum). The cloning of Dolly was the first time scientists had been able to successfully clone a mammal from an adult cell and opened the door to the possibility of cloning any other organism, including a human (Vos). This finding understandably raised concerns over how accepting the public would be of a human clone and whether or not it should be done. The three largest factors to consider …show more content…
Religion plays a key role in the day to day lives of millions of people, and as such, levies immense power in shaping the way people think. Like abortion, which deals with the termination of an unborn fetus, religion is imperative to consider when it comes to topics that deal with human life, especially with religion’s wide-reaching, large influence. However, different religious groups and denominations view the situation of reproductive cloning in vastly different ways. In a survey of different religious groups and denominations, Protestants showed the strongest disagreement with human cloning at 72.4% while those describing themselves as atheists had only 50.2% against human cloning (Bainbridge). In another survey by Bainbridge, people whose church-going patterns differed were interviewed and it was found that those who attend church the most regularly tend to be those who are the least enthusiastic about human cloning at 11.1% while those who attend church less than once a year are the most for human cloning at 39%. In fact, the Christian religion tends to be the most against human reproductive cloning and also happens to be the religion with the largest number of adherents in the United States. Arguably the biggest religious argument against human reproductive cloning is that children should be the byproduct of the love between a man and a woman. If children could be produced without procreation, then the critical bond between man, woman, and child could broken. To many, it is not right that a child could be more without real parents (Reproductive Cloning (1)). However, Moeinifar and Ardebeli, two Islamic theologians, argue that, in determining lineage and the rights of a clone in the Islamic jurisprudence, either paternity or maternity could still be established when a human clone is born