by Veer Ramchandani

Recently, I read several articles about human cloning and wanted to delve deeper and find out why no one has been able to successfully clone a human being.

Let me take you back to the year 1997, when British biologist Ian Wilmut announced the birth of Dolly the sheep. She was the first successful clone of an adult mammal. On further research, I found out that Wilmut and his team created her using a technique called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT). This involves taking an egg from a sheep and removing its DNA-carrying nucleus, then fusing it with a cell from another sheep. This was bombarded with a jolt of electricity. After 250 unsuccessful attempts, the cells finally started multiplying. These cells were put into the womb of a sheep, and a healthy baby sheep was born.

Jumping back to the present day, why is it that I haven’t heard of a successful human cloning attempt?

I would like you to imagine… what if human clones existed? Replicas of you and me. It’s scary, yet fascinating.

1. Human cloning would eliminate genetic variability and create a population of unfit homo sapiens with dysfunctional immune systems and a rampant increase in inherited diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart conditions.
2. Cloning humans would lead to loss of individuality as it would create two humans who are identical to each other.
3. Human cloning would potentially treat humans from various diseases but that would require destruction of human embryos and killing any form of human life is a criminal offence. Who is to decide who lives and who dies?
4. Women would be exploited as they could be injected with hormones which would make them overproduce eggs for the benefit of cloning.
5. Countries might use human cloning as a biological weapon and clones of armies with superior power would be produced. This would lead to disharmony and chaos in the world.

Currently, many countries have banned human cloning for various ethical reasons. Human cloning might be unethical now, but we do not know what the future holds.