The Great Debate on Cloning

            Imagine a little boy with a severe disease who has an extremely rare blood type and needs an organ donor within a month to be able to live. There are not any donors anywhere in the world whose organs would be suitable, and even if there was, the waiting list is so long it could take years to find one, and by that time, the boy would have passed on. Yet right around the corner, scientists have developed technology that would enable them to grow the organs he needs with samples of his DNA. This would be great, but because there are people who do not agree with the idea, it is illegal, so the boy dies. Welcome to the great debate on cloning. .
             Since the birth of Dolly, the cloned sheep, many questions have arisen on how cloning works, how cloning humans could affect society and whether or not it is ethical. Although there is little disagreement about the profound effects the cloning of human beings would have on, the question remains of whether these effects will be positive or negative.
             Cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer, is the production of individuals who are genetically identical to an already existing individual. In essence, it is creating somebody's identical twin; they"re just not born at the same time. The process involves taking a mature but unfertilized egg, removing its nucleus, putting a nucleus from the person to be cloned into the egg, and once the egg begins to divide, transferring it to a woman's uterus to initiate pregnancy (Kass). Many people think that because a clone will look the same as its genetic counterpart, it would act the same, but just like a set of twins, each has its own personality and develops its own individuality based on its surroundings. This is one of the reasons some people support cloning humans. They feel that since parents control all aspects of their children's lives and identities, why not control what genes their children have as well.