Bringing species back from extinction may soon be a reality.
Scientists have recovered 70% of the wooly mammoth’s genome already. To clone
the animal, researchers would need to recover the remaining 30%, package the
DNA into chromosomes, replace the nucleus of an elephant’s egg with a recreated
nucleus of a mammoth egg, stimulate the egg to initiate cell division, then
transfer the egg into an elephant’s womb and bring the mammoth fetus to term.
There are still many, many obstacles to this, but still Stephen Schuster, who
co-led the team that published 70% of the mammoth’s genome, said “It’s a
simple question of time and money, not of technology anymore,” and Hendrik
Pinar, an expert on ancient DNA, said, “This is going to happen. It’s just a
matter of working out the details” (qtd. in Mueller).
Scientists are also making progress on using
cloning to bring back more recently extinct species. Last year, scientists
cloned embryos of an extinct frog by implanting a cell nucleus gathered and
frozen before the species went extinct into a fresh egg from a related,
existing species. This kind of work means that it might be possible to both
bring extinct species back and prevent endangered species from going extinct.
This idea is already gathering steam, as in 2009, the Brazilian Agricultural
Research Corp. and the Brasilia Zoological Garden collected and froze blood,
sperm and umbilical cord cells from wild animals that had died in order to save
genetic information of Brazil’s endangered species so that they might be able
to one day clone them. They would be able to expand the captive population of
these animals, which would hopefully prevent zoos and researchers from taking
wild animals out of their habitat.
However, cloning to save endangered species or
bring back the extinct has several ethical issues. First, from a purely ethical
standpoint, if it is possible to clone dead animals and bring them ‘back to
life,’ then what it people want to clone dead pets? Or maybe one day a dead
relative? Second, there is the potential risk and harm to both the animals used
in the cloning process and the clone produced. Often, researchers combing DNA
from a threatened species with eggs from a related species and implant dozens
of these hybrid embryos into the surrogate mother. These hybrids often fail to
develop properly in the womb, or the surrogate mother’s body rejects the embryo.
Also, when researchers create these hybrids by injecting an adult cell’s
nucleus into an empty egg, the nucleus is not genetically blank. As a result, “nuclear
reprogramming” is required, and this often leads to problems, which probably
cause many of the developmental abnormalities that prevent clones’ viability. Also,
scientists often do not know enough about animals’ reproductive cycles, so
harvesting eggs can be risky. Also, in the case of the woolly mammoth, there
would only be one animal living as a spectacle not in its own habitat, which no
longer exists. There are many other issues involved in cloning to save species,
as well.
Thus, while saving endangered species is a
noble goal, cloning animals may not be part of the solution. It may even
present a danger worth preventing.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenkotler/2013/04/12/beware-the-frog-zombie-clones-the-science-and-ethics-of-raising-the-dead/
3 comments:
After seeing an avenue of bringing back long-gone species and preserving the ones that are slipping away, even if it be cloning, it is hard to say no to. The number of worries that you present along the road of cloning do give us pause to this route. However, while these fears are important to note, they do not seem to be sufficient to deny cloning an opportunity in saving and resurrecting species.
The first objection you note is the slippery slope argument that claims people will extend this trend of cloning to bring back dead friends (a tangent that could be considered: is this so bad?). The problem with this objection is that, as you say, people will want to bring back the dead “if it is possible to clone dead animals.” But as your expert on ancient DNA states, it’s just a matter of time before we get to the point where this is possible. Thus, people will want to be able to clone their loved ones as soon as we reach the capability to do so, regardless of whether or not we are doing so to exotic animals. The second objection relates the risk to embryos that are implanted in the womb. This kind of objection is similar to many made by the pro-life crowd: if the embryo is valuable, then it is unethical to place it in a situation of high risk. However, this argument generally assesses a special moral status to human beings; otherwise, the human embryos they seek to protect are practically worthless, from a utilitarian point of view. This pro-life argument cannot be extended to animals, then, because extending it to animals involves an inherently utilitarian assumption that living beings all have moral value relative to circumstantial mental capabilities, and not just humans. This assumption goes contrary to the core of the argument, which is that the embryo is inherently valuable because of its type.
The other objections mentioned seem more valid, but can also be avoided in time. For instance, the danger that harvesting eggs poses to grown animals can be avoided as our knowledge of reproductive cycles grows. Similarly, one day we may be able to simulate the habitat of extinct species so that we are not faced with the awkward situation of placing ancient animals in foreign habitats.
Austen mentioned a tangent question: is it so bad to clone dead friends? This question is premature at this point, and so does the slippery slope argument. Stephen Schuster's team recovered 70% of the wooly mammoth's genome, and he said that it's only a matter of working out the details. However, the Human Genome Project was completed years ago, and yet we are not close to cloning a human yet. Therefore, it seems like working out the details is very difficult to do, and we do not know how cloning will turn out in the future. There are several questions we have to address before we are able to know whether or not it is bad to clone our friends. First, how similar will the clone be to our original friend? Since we do not know exactly how the environment and genetics work together to shape our identity, we cannot answer this question given the knowledge we know today. Second, we have to set up an ethical guideline for experimentation on human cloning. As Alyssa mentioned, nuclear reprogramming may lead to abnormality and affect the viability of the clone. Then, is it still possible to do research on human beings if it can potentially lead to abnormal babies? Without research, we will not be able to make progress in human cloning.
Suppose one day, we actually did manage to master cloning. Is it bad to clone humans? If cloning human means making another human who is identical to another human, then nature already does cloning, in the form of identical twins. The only difference between clones and twins is that one is natural and one is artificial. Is it justified to say that the artificial one is unethical? Personally, I think that the two are morally equal. If nature left us clues to the mystery of life, and we managed to solve that mystery, then we should be able to shape life itself as well. In a utopia, a clone will be able to fit into the society, but in our current world, we still have to answer many legal, social, economical, and ethical questions. But for now, we do not have to worry about cloning because cloning may still be decades into the future.
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