Process of Cloning of Animals - Essay Example

The idea of animal cloning had been a subject of many scientific studies and it only caught attention when it was able to successfully clone an animal. It was first done through a sheep named Dolly which was created at Roslin Institute in Scotland in 1996 and died in 2003. Dolly was created using the nucleus of an udder cell and the success of her cloning marked the advent of animal cloning (BBC).

Animal cloning however is marred with controversy. There are ethical questions raised about the practice and people are divided about the issue with some agreeing with the idea of animal cloning while some disagreeing about the idea. Those who agree with the idea of animal cloning, see it as a practical solution to the pressing need to feed us while those who disagree see it as a transgression of God’s prerogative to create. There was also the initial fear that cloned animals may be unsafe for consumption but science has already proven that they are as safe to eat as our everyday food that government regulatory agencies such as FDA in 2008 even allowed them and their offspring to be consumed.

So far, no untoward incident happened to anyone who consumed produce from cloned animals. What is left is the lingering paranoia that there may be unknown danger in consuming cloned animals because it is reproduced in a manner that is unnatural and therefore unsafe. It however ignores the fact that cloning is not done to stretch the limit of ethics but rather to address some valid and lingering issues such as hunger and the provision of food that is cheap, nutritious,s and equivalent to those we consume every day. The success of the animal cloning process is that this could be possible and instead of discouraging and criticizing it, animal cloning should be encouraged for it to flourish.

This compels us to look for ways to reproduce food that can feed us all in a manner that is cheaper, nutritious, and disease free. Recent development in animal cloning proved that it is indeed possible to reproduce and clone animal traits that could help increase the production of food. For example, a trait of cows that are prolific producers of milk can be replicated and thereby yield milk that would have been otherwise difficult without the technology of cloning. The same applies to increasing the number of offspring of animals and the possibility of the application of animal cloning is infinite as many animals have already cloned successfully such as cattle, camel, and carp, to name a few. The initial fears about animal cloning have already been allayed by the fact that government regulatory agencies through their scientists have concluded in their final risk assessment in January of 2008 that meat and milk from cows, pigs, and goats who are cloned and their offspring are no different from those that were naturally born and that they are “as safe as food we eat every day” (FDA).

This process may be criticized as playing god and that creation is supposed to be an exclusive prerogative of God and man is taking it into his hand through cloning and that animals are supposed to be born, not created by decanting or cloning. This perspective however is backward because it does not acknowledge the pressing need of humanity to feed itself where many are already dying of starvation. It merely points to a theological reasoning that creation is a prerogative of God when there is no evidence that God prohibits cloning. Many would like to jump to the conclusion that this may be used to justify or progress to human cloning. But while human cloning raises another ethical issue, the issue about animal cloning should not be muddled with other issues to deprive us of its benefits.

If there is anything objectionable or unethical about the process, it is not animal cloning but the abandonment of letting people get hungry when the technology to feed them is available. Read More