Imagine an adult patient suffering from Hepatitis C who requires surgery for a liver transplant; in the past, the hospital always experiences shortages in organ donors and the patient needs a matching liver within a week prior to the operation. Fortunately, the patient has coverage for cloned versions of his organs ever since his parents applied for insurance when he was a toddler. The surgeons will use the cloned liver which possesses copies of the patient's original cells, and therefore, eliminate the risks of rejection, consequently saving his life.

Cloning is a widely controversial science that involves the duplication of biological material. It is a topic that has been questioned numerous times as to whether it is right or wrong.The debut of Dolly the sheep, cloned by Ian Wilmut and his team of scientists at Roslin Institute, had piqued the interest of infertile couples and people suffering from life-threatening maladies all over the globe. Despite what cloning has to offer medically--ethics, religion, and politics interfere with the true purpose of the science and add unnecessary obstacles or road-blocks to the progress of science.

"Ethics is a wonderful word, but we need to look beyond the ethical issues here. It's not an ethical issue. It's a medical issue. We have a duty here. Some people need this to complete the life cycle, to reproduce."(1)

As the result of a lack of knowledge and understanding about the nature of cloning, misconceptions arise such as, "Cloning is crossing the line of God," or "Cloning could be used as a method of resurrection," which inevitably causes confusion and concerns. Scientists repeatedly emphasized that their intentions have nothing to do with creating human life, but rather apply cloning to their studies in the functions of cells and certain genes to figure out how to "turn them on," so they can conduct cures for genetic diseases and other ailments. Instead, they are constantly bombarded with ridiculous statements and questions that make the art of cloning sound like a terrible science-fiction film! So, the big question is, how far can scientists go with cloning and what is its affect upon the economy, society, politics, and various religions?

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(1)Response of an aspiring cloner named Zavos to TIME Magazine:
Gibbs, Nancy. "Baby, It's You! and You, and You..." Time. 21 Feb. 2001. CNN. 8 Nov. 2007

ARTICLE

The Three Types of Cloning

In order to thoroughly comprehend why cloning has countless restrictions and make the personal decision whether to approve it or not, one must acknowledge the three different types of cloning, which include: reproductive cloning, recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning, and therapeutic cloning. Cloning is used in other ways and not just manufacturing genetic copies of organisms.

1. Reproductive cloning

Reproductive cloning is the most mentioned type of cloning by the media. It is used to create an animal that possesses similar nuclear DNA as another alive or dead animal. The process used to demonstrate reproductive cloning is known as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, or SCNT, in which scientists extract DNA from the nucleus of a donor adult cell and transfer it to an egg. Chemicals or electricity are then provided for the egg harvesting the DNA from the donor in order to initiate cell reproduction. When the embryo becomes mature enough, it is transferred to the uterus of a surrogate where it picks up where it has left off in its development, until birth . The offspring will not be an identical clone of the donor animal, but instead, possess similar chromosomal or nuclear DNA as the donor.

2. Recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning

Recombinant DNA technology, otherwise referred to as either molecular cloning or gene cloning, is the process by which a DNA fragment of interest from one organism is transferred to a self-replicating genetic element such as a bacterium. The DNA of interest can then multiply in a foreign host cell. In order to "clone a gene," restriction enzymes isolate a DNA fragment containing the gene of interest from chromosomal DNA and combine it with a cloning vector that has been incised with similar restriction enzymes.

3. Therapeutic cloning

Embryo cloning or therapeutic cloning, is the production of human embryos for use in research. The purpose of this process is to harvest stem cells, not create cloned human beings, which people tend to think. Stem cells are used to study human development and to treat diseases. These cells are incredibly unique because they can morph into any type of specialized cell in the human body. After the egg has divided for five days, the stem cells are removed. The egg is called a blastocyst at this development stage.

Due to the destruction of the embryo during the extraction process, ethical apprehension arises. Stem cells may one day hopefully serve as replacement cells to repair broken bones and cure diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and many more.

Utilizing Cloning Techonologies

1. Reproductive cloning

a. develop efficient ways to reproduce animals with special characteristics.
i. animals producing drugs or genetically altered animals that can be used to study disease.
b. repopulate endangered species that are difficult to propagate.
i. the giant panda, mouflon, Sumatran tiger, etc.

2. Recombinant DNA technology

a. encourages the further studying of gene therapy which aims to cure genetic conditions by using virus vectors that carry corrected copies of defective genes into the cells of a host organism.
b. introduce genetically modified food and crops by injecting microorganisms to enhance quality, taste, and/or resistance to certain types of disease.
c. apply the use of genome sequencing where pieces of chromosomal DNA must be placed into various cloning vectors to produce fragments of proper size for sequencing.

3. Therapeutic cloning

a. used in humans to manufacture whole organs from one cell or produce healthy cells that serve as replacements for damaged cells in degenerative illnesses.