[silver_pilate]

Having had just about every biological science class there is out there, including embryology and developmental biology, I've just about seen it all. Scientests have been cloning amphibians since the 50's. The only difference is that they used embryonic cells from the young blastula. At this stage, one could seperate the cells, say seperating the cells at the 16-cell blastomere stage, and each cell would procede to form an identical organism in a process called "twinning." The hoopla over recent cloning is that they figured out how to clone an organism from an adult cell's nucleus. Remember, all cells form from the union of two single haploid cells forming one diploid cell during fertilization. Every cell in our bodies came from that one cell. Somewhere along the line of specialization during development, the "stem cell" ability turns off, so to speak. The big deal was figuring out how to transfer adult DNA from a somatic cell into an embryonic cell with it's nucleus removed, thus creating an animal with DNA from only one parent. As far as whole human cloning, it's likely already been done. Several years back a book came out describing the cloning of a human being. It was taken as fiction, however, the technology described and said to have been used in the book was to the letter perfect. It takes an insider to have access to that type of information.

I'm especially against whole human cloning. There is a deffinate advantage to haveing sexual reproduction (aside from the obvious ). It stirs up the gene pool....creates diversity....allows for adaptation. Turkeys can reproduce asexually through a process called parthenogenesis in which the females create a viable offspring without male fertilization. This allows the population to be sustained in the abscence of males, however, all the offspring and identical and all are female. Eventually, without genetic diversity, the gene pool will become stagnant and the population will decline.

I'm also against partial cloning with the use of human embryonic stem cells. I, also, am a pro-life supporter. I don't think the aborting of fetuses is morally justified, and I don't believe that the creation of life by fertilizing an egg and then ending that life by creating stem cell lines for research is morally justified. I think it would be great to figure out how to grow a new organ for one that you've lost. I think it would be great to figure out how to cure paralysis. Yeah, it would be great, but jumping off a cliff would be a great rush until you hit the ground. In the same manner, cloning would be a great rush, but the moral implications, not to mention the possible scientific atrocities that could crop up far outweigh the benefits, in my opinion.

I'm not against the use of all stem cells, however. One method that I think should receive a great deal more research is the use of umbilical cord blood stem cells. Stem cells are found in the umbilical cord blood of new-born fetuses. This blood is typically discarded unless otherwise stipulated. The use of non-relative umbilical cord blood has been documented in successfully curing sickle cell anemia. The cells in umbilical cord blood have the ability to form into any type of blood cell. Doctors used radiation to destroy the boys own blood cells before infusing the umbilical cord blood. This blood then proceeded to form an entirely new blood system (including white blood cells, red blood cells, lymphocytes, etc.). That's some pretty exciting stuff, and no children were killed in the process.

--nathan