The Cloning of Plants and Animals Will Be Benefical.

You start of by stating " It's true, the benefits of cloning do outweigh the risks." This is not substantiated by anything. I actually believe the reverse to be true. There are many risks involved in cloning. You start by mentioning that there is a similarity between the anatomy of a pig and that of a human. This much is true. But to jump from that to stating that pigs should be cloned for transplants is a huge leap. Although there has been talk of xenotransplants for over a century, when executed very few are successful. (A xenotransplant is a transplant from one species to another) The first two xenotransplants were performed in 1906 by Dr. Mathieu Jaboulay. One was a renal transplant, and the other was a liver transplant. Neither patient survived. Since that time, many of the xenotransplants have been disastrous. The few successes are boasted, but these are few and far between. However, even if the success rate were higher, a natural animal is surely to be preferred over one that has been cloned. Cloned animals have a ton of health problems. Even the most successful cloning experiments do not eliminate this problem. The famous cloned sheep by the name of Dolly had countless health issues. She also died much younger than normal sheep. Cloned animals of poor health should certainly not be used for human transplants. Furthermore, the problems of normal transplants are hard enough. Whenever a transplant is performed, the surgeons have to drastically weaken the recipient's immune system in order to prevent the donor organ from being rejected. Even in this weakened state, human organs are still often rejected by the body. Just imagine how much harder it is to get the body to accept an organ from an entirely different species! When it comes to plant cloning, your argument is that they can be cloned for food and for deforestation. On the issue of food, this would be counterproductive. You would be helping one population by harming another. Some people in the third world countries may be helped, but suddenly all of the farmers are left out in the cold. For if the food production turns to cloning, it would be the large corporations that would take over. Where does this leave the farmer? Furthermore, cloned plants are all genetically identical. From a biological standpoint this can be disastrous. By reducing the biodiversity of any population, this greatly increases the risk for diseases to wipe out the entire population. This would not only be the case with the crops, but also with the pine trees you mention. Replacing the forests with a large number of genetically identical trees that can all be wiped out in one fell swoop due to the lack of diversity is not a solution. In addition to all of these points, there seems to be a larger number of mutations that occur with cloning. Although these effects are certainly seen more in the animal kingdom, it is hard to imagine that none are present in plants. Plants have had a greater success rate when it comes to cloning, but even in these procedures many steps must be taken to reduce or prevent mutations. This can raise some questions as to the safety in consuming such cloned crops.