For my topic on Medical law and ethics I chose Cloning. I feel this topic is interesting due to the years it has been around, and the controversy behind it. People have mixed emotions, and beliefs regarding this topic. Some people feel cloning should be permitted for scientific purposes, while other people believe scientists are playing God when they are cloning both humans and animals. What is cloning? Cloning is the process of creating a copied material or an identical copy of an original. Cloning is divided into 3 categories Gene cloning, reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning. Cloning was first introduced in 1952, by two scientists Robert Briggs and Thomas King, who developed a tadpole by somatic cell nuclear transfer. They …show more content…
There are two methods that are used when transferring the somatic cells. One is by using a needle to inject the empty egg, and the other is by using electrical current to fuse the empty egg with the somatic cell. Using these procedures allows the egg to develop into an early-stage embryo inside a test-tube which is then implanted into the uterus of an adult female animal who shares the same genetic as the implanted cell. The adult female animal serves as a surrogate mother, which later gives birth to the animal referred to as a …show more content…
This type of cloning is also the most controversial of all. Therapeutic cloning is the process of creating a cloned embryo, though nuclear transplantation of a patient’s own cells to create an egg cell or oocyte for the only purpose of producing immune-compatible cells, or embryonic stem cells with the same DNA as the donor cell. Unlike Reproduction cloning the cloned embryo is not implanted in the uterus of an adult animal, instead it is grown in test tubes. In Therapeutic cloning the cloned embryo is harvested for embryonic stem cells that are used for scientific experiments that can help understand and treat diseases. The first five days of Therapeutic cloning is the most important stage of development, this stage is called the blastocyst. During blastocyst a tissue is formed into a cluster after the egg has started to divide. This cluster has about 100 embryonic stem cells that can become any cell type, but it also leads to the embryo destruction while in the test tube. The destruction of cloned embryos for the purpose of scientific experiments is what makes Therapeutic cloning controversial and