What happens if every body looks exactly the same; men are handsome, and women are beautiful. Imagine when they are all in the same ball room; can they recognize their partner? Would you like to have your children look exactly the same as you? Not just only one, but 10 or even 100 identical children? This could happen IF (big if) we let scientists do their job (clone ourselves). Scientists have proved that they have successfully cloned some animals; yet they have not done it on human beings due to our human high ethic. So what is the cloning? How do scientists clone human being if it is not banned? What are the pros & cons of human cloning?

What is the cloning?

The cloning here is the process of creating an exact copy of gene, cell, or organism. Thus the human cloning is the process of making another human with identical genes (DNA). How do scientists do it? Well first we need to be familiar with some words that are used often in biology.

What are the cell nucleus, sex cell, fertilized egg, and embryo?

We know that our body is made up of trillions cells divided into about 200 types. The cell nucleus, which resides in the center of the cell, has 2 main functions: a) serve as the cell’s command center, sending directions to the cell to grow, mature, divide or die; b) house DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), which contains the genetic information. In this subject, the nucleus main function is to direct the cell to divide and pass the genetic information (DNA) to the new cells.

Before looking at how the cloning process works, we may need to know how the normal baby is born in a very short summary. When a couple have an intercourse at the right date, the woman could have her egg (female sex cell) penetrated and fertilized by a sperm (male sex cell) from her partner. The fertilized egg, which is formed from the merging of one sperm and one egg, is called Zygote. It is considered to be a single-cell organism, and it starts dividing, replicating itself again and again. Within a few days it divides to about 100 cells and they are called “embryo stem cells”. These stem cells just keep dividing and at one point they start to differentiate to different types of cells, which form different tissues and organs. About nine months later, the new baby is born.

How do scientists clone human being?

In this process there are 3 people involved: woman who will donate egg, person who will be cloned, and woman who will carry the pregnancy (surrogate mother).

The following steps are the process of cloning human being:

1. The egg will be taken from the donor and then the nucleus will be removed from the egg. The egg without nucleus is now called “enucleated egg”.
2. The cell, which contains DNA, will be taken from the person, who is being cloned.
3. The enucleated egg in step 1 above will be fused together with the cell in step 2 above. They use electricity to do the fusing. The intention is to have the nucleus (DNA) of the cloning person’s cell to be the nucleus of the new merging cell.
4. With luck, this new merging cell could divide and become embryo cells.
5. The embryo cells will be put into the surrogate mother's womb using a process called “in vetro fertilization”.
6. About nine months later the new baby, who has identical DNA of the cloning person, will be born.

Can this process be successful on humans?

There is no proof that someone has done it successfully yet. Dr. Severino Antinori, an Italian doctor, just said a few days ago that he had cloned 3 children for three infertile couples. They are now 9 years old living in Eastern Europe, and they are healthy. However he did not have proof; he claimed that he could not provide the proof due to his clients’ privacy. Some labs claimed they cloned successfully on human cells to embryo stage and stopped there due to their high ethic.

For sure scientists have been done successfully on many animals such as on cow, sheep, and cat. The success rate is not great at all. The well known sheep called “Dolly the sheep” was cloned on 1997 after 277 failures (1 out of 277 cloning). Even after successful cloning, the clones may run into other problems with their life such as short lifespan, and prone to have illness. Here are some example of successful cloning on other species: Carp (fish) in 1963 by Chinese scientist; mice in 1986 by Soviet scientists; sheep in 1995, 1996, and 1997 (Dolly the sheep is a well known clone and published in Time magazine); Cat in 2001 and 2004; Horse in 2003; Rhesus monkey in 2006; Water buffalo in 2009 (died 5 days later due to lung infection).

Yes the successful rate is very low, but what do you expect for the 1st few attempts; remember how many years doctors spend time to perfect their surgery methods? Wait for a hundred years or so from now, things may change when we all understood more about things involved in this process. Currently scientists are mapping and studying all the human genes (roughly about 25,000-30,000 genes); some scientists are trying to understand the embryo cells that are differentiating to different types of cells for our different tissues and organs in the differentiation stage.

What are the pros of human cloning?

• The infertile couple can have children.
• Just want to have a child without getting married.
• Just want to have many identical children.
• (For other species) Just to save some endangered species on earth.

What are cons of human cloning?

• Human ethic may cross its boundary
• Cloned children may have their short lifespan
• Cloned children may have defective organs.
• Cloned children may prone to have illness.
• Cloned children will face social discrimination
• Cloned children may live with unhappiness.
• Bad guys could clone humans to do bad things.

Is human cloning unethical?

It is debatable and up to each individual. My opinion – even if the cloning is perfect, I still believe it is unethical, and I oppose it. I prefer humans to be born in nature way and have both parents to raise them. Imagine what happens if bad guys clone humans for slave or army to do bad things. However I do support the stem cell research just to cure genetic diseases and repair damaged organs. What is the stem cell research? It is not in the scope of this essay, but it will be on different essay.

Will human cloning ever happen?

Sure it will, and it will not matter how high our human ethic barrier is. There will be some people who want to do it and eventually they do it. We may remember the transgender (sex change) 30 years ago; it was considered a very low moral. People, who had done it, were considered very low in society at the time; but now it is normal thing and many people have done it and live happily.