Adult cloning (a.k.a. reproductive cloning) is a technique intended to produce a duplicate of an existing animal. It has been used to clone sheep and other mammals. The DNA from the ovum is replaced by the DNA formed from a cell that is removed from an adult animal. Then the fertilized ovum, now called a pre-embryo, is implanted into the womb of a new animal. As of January 2002, it had not been tried on humans. It is specifically forbidden by law in most countries. There are rumors that Dr. Severino Aninori has successfully initiated a human pregnancy through reproductive cloning. It has the potential of producing a twin of an existing human being. Based on the latter reason alone, many in the medical field consider it to be a profoundly immoral procedure when done to humans. Therapeutic cloning (a.k.a. biomedical cloning) is a procedure whose initial stages are identical to adult DNA cloning. However, the stems are removed from the pre-embryo with the intent of producing tissue or a whole organ for transplant back into the person who supplied the DNA. The side effect to this process is that the pre-embryo dies in the process. Why create a life then kill it only to save another?.
The Mayo Clinic stated, "While we enthusiastically affirm the importance of medical research and we support the goal of healing people. We believe that the harms human cloning would bring to medicine would exceed the anticipated benefits," (Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Vol. 78). Cloning is hazardous to the gestating clone and its surrogate mother. The current state of non-human cloning technology is so rudimentary that the procedure has resulted in a high occurrence of severe physical and genetic defects and premature aging in clone offspring, (Weiss, Pg. A12). So many lives are lost because of this cloning technology. Embryologists estimate that a single successful cloning may come at the cost of hundreds of failed attempts.
