CLONING

Scottish embryologist Ian Wilmut presented Dolly, the cloned sheep, to a surprised world, ethicists and policymakers have been striving with the settling implications of his study. For years, cloning of adults, animals or humans has been largely the stuff of science invention. Because the successful cloning of a six-year-old sheep, many of the assumptions and questions being raised have roots in the fictional: Could Hitler or the Incan Ice Mummy brought back to life? Would humans be cloned only to cannibalize their organs?

Uses of Cloning

• The production of animals engineered to take human genes for the making of certain. proteins that could be used as drugs; the proteins would be take out from the animal’s
milk and used to treat human diseases

• The mass creation of livestock that have been hereditarily customized to possess certain desirable behavior.
• The upholding of endangered species.
• The production of offspring by infertile couples.
• The production of offspring frees of a potentially disease-causing genetic fault carried by one member of a couple; the person without the defect could be cloned.