The discipline of biotechnology adapts various techniques in enhancing the state of
being. Biotechnology uses genetic cloning to create vaccines, medicines, and cloned
animals to better human living. However, multiple concerns arise about the morality of
these practices regarding protecting biological systems from misuse by unscrupulous
scientists. Bioethics involves evaluating scientists’ actions, objectives, and responsibilities
in genetic cloning. Genetic cloning dates back to the 1960s with the cloning of Scottish
sheep named Dolly on July 5, 1996. The cloning of Dolly elicited public panic over the
misapplication of science, leading to the prohibition of human cloning by US president
Bill Clinton and the global ban on potential human cloning by the UNESCO declaration on
Human Genome and Human Rights. Dolly created the landmark event in science that
birthed bioethics (Becker, 2021). The most pertinent question in cloning bioethics is the
theft of dignity, the presumption that life scientists were playing God, and the
unnaturalness of lab-created animals (Becker, 2021). Genetic cloning can result in two
types of moral dilemmas. First, it may negatively impact animals, human beings, and the
environment, or secondly, it may go against various ethical principles. For example, there
is a valid concern about the pain and suffering experienced by animals and human beings
whose genes are extracted for genetic cloning. Moreover, the worrying trend of
unsuccessful cloning experiments casts doubts on the need for this level of suffering.
Furthermore, literature documents the high levels of genetic defects, premature death, and
chronic diseases in cloned animals which morally disapprove of the practice. Finally, there
is a concern about the high risks animals are subjected to during cloning, including
possibilities of heart failure or death, which is against animal rights (Sinha et al., 2019).
Philosophical debates have concluded that using products from cloned animals is
dangerous given the increased diseases and animal welfare issues currently experienced
even without cloning. Therefore, commercializing cloned animal products would be
premature. On the other hand, religious dissent holds that it is against natural existence and
the hidden truth of creation to recreate animals and human beings (Sinha et al., 2019).
Other issues in the genetic cloning of humans mainly include the commercialization of
human genetic material as research products, the potential destruction of stem cells, the
elimination of parent-child relationships, and the safety and viability of the cloning
procedure (Iqbal et al., 2020). However, the general outcome of cloning is not entirely
disastrous. Scientists argue that genetic cloning decreases the sample size of animals
required to perform experiments during drug generation. Others argue that it increases
accuracy by eliminating environmental factors that lead to differences between animals
and humans. While rats and mice have commonly been used as models for such
experiments, their generalizability to humans is limited. Moreover, some conditions like
mental illness can barely be modeled in other organisms (Chu et al., 2018).
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References
Becker, G. (2021). On Dolly and the scandalous nature of life sciences and Where
bioethics really begins.;Acta Biochimica Polonica.
https://doi.org/10.18388/abp.2020_5950
Chu, H. Y., Sprouffske, K., & Wagner, A. (2018). Assessing the benefits of horizontal
gene transfer by laboratory evolution and genome sequencing.;BMC Evolutionary
Biology,;18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-018-1164-7
Iqbal, R., Nasrullah, BiBi, S., Muneer, S., BiBi, S., & Anwar, F. (2020). Ethical issues of
human cloning.;Journal of Medical Sciences,;40(3), 103.
https://doi.org/10.4103/jmedsci.jmedsci_69_19
Sinha, N., Patil, S., Kesigan, U., Sai Chaitanya, T., Panigrahy, S., & Tandon, G. D. (2019).
Ethical concerns in Animal Cloning: Possible Risks and Assessment.;Global
Bioethics Enquiry Journal,;7(3), 128. https://doi.org/10.38020/gbe.7.3.2019.128-
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