Cloning

Let me begin by reminding you of the distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning. Many of your criticisms are based on issues involving reproductive cloning, which I will elaborate on in a moment. First, I would like to further explain why I believe therapeutic cloning will help to improve the quality and length of life for individuals with failing or diseased vital organs. There is a high demand for organ transplants. Did you know, due to a shortage of donated organs, an average of 18 people die each day waiting for organ transplants? Eventually, therapeutic cloning could help to provide cloned organs to every individual on the organ wait list, both extending and saving lives. Therapeutic cloning of this kind will take years of dedicated research to make possible, with a series of trials and errors. In your response, you point out that "cloning could lead to many deaths of new organisms. " While technically, this may be true if you believe that life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized. However, in therapeutic cloning a cloned embryo is created for the purpose of producing embryonic stem cells with the same DNA as the donor cell and are harvested in the blastocyst stage. It is true that this results in the destruction of the embryo at a very early stage of development (less than 1 week) and in my opinion this is not considered a new life. In the case of reproductive cloning, your questions include the "massive expense and birth defects of the clones". It is true that we are currently lacking the knowledge and technology to clone human beings successfully at a reasonable cost. I would like to bring to your attention two points: (1) every new achievement in biotechnology begins with an idea that has not been successfully accomplished, and (2) new technology is usually expensive until it becomes widely available. If we stop our research now, we will never be able to succeed in reproductive cloning. This raises the question of whether reproductive cloning should be a goal and I believe the answer is yes. Consider the possibility that, with time and more research, reproductive cloning of animals who are endangered could be used to save their species. Another advantage to reproductive cloning is that it has potential for same-sex and infertile couples to have genetically related children. In fact, scientists argue that it may be possible to use cloning combined with genetic modifications to safely create children who are genetically related to both partners. Keep in mind that this technology will not be used on humans until it can be used in a safe and reliable manner. Regarding your concerns about tax payers and funds for cloning research, I believe this is an issue that should be left to the voters to decide. Questions: 1. ) You argue that most people in our country are religious, primarily Christian, and therefore are against reproductive cloning because it is "playing God". How is it that other infertility treatments are not considered "playing God" but cloning is? Shouldn"t all reproductive strategies be legal? 2. ) Why would babies who are clones be treated differently than any other child conceived with biotechnology assistance (test tube babies)?