Twenty-first Century Medicine In 1997 a shocking announcement was made to the world. Scottish scientist Dr. Ian Wilmont revealed that he had successfully cloned an entire sheep. This announcement brought a realization that cloning was no longer a dream or a figment of the imagination, and it immediately became one of the most debatable topics in the world. Discussions began concerning the ethical problems as well as the benefits of cloning. Those in favor of cloning argue that the technology will eventually lead to a number of benefits for human lives, benefits such as assisting reproductively challenged couples in having children genetically related to them, the growing and healing of wounded or diseased tissues and organs, and the curing of diseases such as cancer and leukemia. Conversely, opponents of cloning state that it is immoral and unethical to clone for religious reasons. Their arguments also include very thoughtful and concerned ideas, such as the fear that cloning will lead to the "10,000 Hitlers scenario, and also the belief that the clone will suffer some sort of trauma because they will not have a unique identity of their own. All of these arguments are valid concerns, but when held to close examination do they really hold up as adequate reasons to put a ban on all types of cloning, some of which may help to save the lives of others? It is not enough to say that cloning is the creation of something, which is an exact copy of something else. That just leaves too much to the imagination and leads to the misunderstanding of the process. Cloning is the procedure which the DNA of a female egg cell is replaced with different DNA from another cell. In the operation the nucleus from an unfertilized female egg cell, which contains the DNA molecules, is carefully removed and then replaced with the nucleus from a cell of another person (Harris 4). Genetic engineers then trick the cell into believing that it has been fe...
