cloning is not dangerous

CASEI will argue the case on two levels: 1. the idea of cloning itself is harmful, and 2. The act of cloning is harmful1. The idea of cloning itself is harmfula. Violates Human Dignity Reproductive cloning is contrary to human dignity. ‘Donum Vitae’, the declaration of the Catholic church in relation to the new reproductive technologies, holds that procreation outside the conjugal union is morally wrong. Many secular organizations, such as the WHO and UNESCO have issued statements that similarly find cloning violates human dignity. Assisted reproductive technologies might all be seen as challenges to human dignity, including IVF and sperm donation. However, human cloning is a completely artificial form of reproduction, which leaves no trace of the dignity of human procreation.b. Treats children as objects Cloning treats children as objects. Children will be manufactured by an expensive technological process that is subject to quality control. The gulf between an artisan and an artefact is immense. Individuals will be able to have a child for the sake of having children, or as a symbol of status, rather than because they desire to conceive, love and raise another human being. Cloning will not only allow, but actually encourage, the commodification of people. 2. The act of cloning is harmful (Scientifically Proven Harms)a. Safety Issues The technology is unsafe. The nuclear transfer technique that produced Dolly required 277 embryos, from which only one healthy and viable sheep was produced. The other foetuses were hideously deformed and either died or were aborted. Even today, cloning animals through somatic cell nuclear transfer is simply inefficient. The success rate ranges from 0.1 percent to 3 percent, which means that for every 1000 tries, only one to 30 clones are made. Or you can look at it as 970 to 999 failures in 1000 tries. Moreover, Ian Wilmut and other commentators have noted that we cannot know whether clones will suffer from premature ageing as a result of their elderly genes. Dolly the sheep herself suffered from premature arthritis. There are also fears that the reprogramming of the nucleus of a somatic cell in order to trigger the cell division that leads to the cloning of an individual may result in a significantly increased risk of cancer. b. High failure rate Cloning animals through somatic cell nuclear transfer is simply inefficient. The success rate ranges from 0.1 percent to 3 percent, which means that for every 1000 tries, only one to 30 clones are made. Or you can look at it as 970 to 999 failures in 1000 tries. Here are some reasons: § The enucleated egg and the transferred nucleus may not be compatible § An egg with a newly transferred nucleus may not begin to divide or develop properly § Implantation of the embryo into the surrogate mother might fail § The pregnancy itself might fail c. Problems later during development Cloned animals that do survive tend to be much bigger at birth than their natural counterparts. Scientists call this "Large Offspring Syndrome" (LOS). Clones with LOS have abnormally large organs. This can lead to breathing, blood flow and other problems. Because LOS doesn't always occur, scientists cannot reliably predict whether it will happen in any given clone. Also, some clones without LOS have developed kidney or brain malformations and impaired immune systems, which can cause problems later in life. d. Abnormal Gene expression patterns Are the surviving clones really clones? The clones look like the originals, and their DNA sequences are identical. But will the clone express the right genes at the right time? In Click and Clone, we saw that one challenge is to re-program the transferred nucleus to behave as though it belongs in a very early embryonic cell. This mimics natural development, which starts when a sperm fertilizes an egg. In a naturally-created embryo, the DNA is programmed to express a certain set of genes. Later on, as the embryonic cells begin to differentiate, the program changes. For every type of differentiated cell - skin, blood, bone or nerve, for example - this program is different. In cloning, the transferred nucleus doesn't have the same program as a natural embryo. It is up to the scientist to reprogram the nucleus, like teaching an old dog new tricks. Complete reprogramming is needed for normal or near-normal development. Incomplete programming will cause the embryo to develop abnormally or fail. e. Telomeric Difference As cells divide, their chromosomes get shorter. This is because the DNA sequences at both ends of a chromosome, called telomeres, shrink in length every time the DNA is copied. The older the animal is, the shorter its telomeres will be, because the cells have divided many, many times. This is a natural part of aging. So, what happens to the clone if its transferred nucleus is already pretty old? Will the shortened telomeres affect its development or lifespan? When scientists looked at the telomere lengths of cloned animals, they found no clear answers. Chromosomes from cloned cattle or mice had longer telomeres than normal. These cells showed other signs of youth and seemed to have an extended lifespan compared with cells from a naturally conceived cow. On the other hand, Dolly the sheep's chromosomes had shorter telomere lengths than normal. This means that Dolly's cells were aging faster than the cells from a normal sheep. To date, scientists aren't sure why cloned animals show differences in telomere length. REFUTATIONMy opponents said: Number one: If you were to clone humans exactly by DNA and gene makeup it's possible that the sequence may work. Although, if something went wrong the clone('s) could overgrow, gain mutant powers, etc. The clone or clones may harm mankind. Responces:i. they supply no proof, example, source, or even analysis that gene makeup may cause the sequence to workii. even if it does work, they have shown no anylysis why cloning is safe. This debate is about whether cloining is safe or dangerous. The process itself that they mentioned of using the DNA and gene makeup may be dangerous, as well as the end result of the cloning can be dangerous as well. The harms and dangers that can occur include: Medical Issues Human cloning can give rise to certain medical issues. Technically, human gene grows older with age. It’s feared that the cloned individual would retain the age of the donor’s genes. Imagine what will happen if a 40 year old gene is manifested into a newborn baby. - Social Hiccups There is a possibility that cloned individuals might not receive their due share of respect and acceptance in the society. It’s believed that there will be unsettled opinions about the rights granted to a clone. Also, the real beauty of humanity lies in the differences we witness amongst each other. Cloning would kill the surprise element over here. - Health Concerns The health risks involved with human cloning is something that cannot be sidelined on all accounts. There is a possibility that the cloned individual might carry certain abnormalities, and may die sooner than the standard life expectancy. - Moral Issues Technological abuse is one aspect that can come into the picture once human cloning becomes a prominent feature. Imagine what a corrupt guy will do after cloning himself. There will always be someone or the other who will try to abuse this technological advancement to the extreme. In some cases, the clone might also turn out to be better than the donor. Since a clone can conduct almost every activity an average individual can perform such as eating, drinking, bathing etc, it won’t come as surprise to learn that human clones will be illegally traded for personal gains. Needless to say, trade of human beings is illegal and against all morals. - Ethical Concerns Ethical concerns will also be raised on human cloning. There will be loads of protest from various groups, if human cloning is to be legalized in the near future. The whole idea of human cloning is already hurting the sentiments of truckloads of people out there. Some believe that human cloning is playing around with God’s rules. The million dollar question that really needs our attention is whether we can create a human being at our will and wish? - Legal Issues Human cloning laws are said to be very complicated in nature, and they vary from one country to another. The fact that the laws are divided on such a sensitive issue is a certain feature of potential trouble. There have been decent attempts made in the past to pass federal law to ban human cloning completely, but there is no definite law passed as yet that bans all human cloning. As such, the twentieth century hasn’t seen much progress on human cloning as one might have expected, considering the fact that the technological advancement has seen robust growth in the last few decade or so. Considering all the above said disadvantages linked with human cloning, one can only be happy that the development of human cloning has not seen the day of light as yet. The first mammalian clone was a sheep called Dolly. Although the successful cloning of Dolly was a significant step in this matter, Dolly died young due to a rare disease, which is usually not seen in the sheep of her age group. iii. Our opponent has also said that "if something went wrong, it could harm mankind", which is clearly going against their own stance; meaning that since they have agreed with our side already (that cloning is dangerous), and they are supposed to be on PRO side of the topic that cloning is not dangerous, they have acknowledged our win already.