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Ethics of Cloning

Cloning is the process of producing genetically identical individuals. Some organisms, such as bacteria, insects, or plants reproduce asexually, essentially cloning themselves. Humans have developed techniques to clone a wide variety of mammals, and you can see these advancements in the news often these days. Since the cloning of Dolly the Sheep in 1996, great strides have been made to increase the efficiency of the process, increase the health of clones, and reduce and eliminate any aging-related problems (Shockman, 2016).

Consider the following three cloning landmarks:

• In 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved food derived from cloned animals. In addition, these products did not need to be labeled as "cloned" or "from clones" (Black, 2008). The FDA explained that you would not be eating the clone itself. It takes thousands of dollars to clone a food animal such as a cow or pig. Animals that are cloned for improved food production are used for a breeding program to produce many offspring with the desirable traits for increased meat or milk yield. These offspring of the clones are fair game for food.  
• In polo, each team has four players who ride as many as a dozen horses during a match. Adolfo Cambiaso, the world’s number one polo player, has cloned his favorite mare Cuartetera. He recently rode the clones to win the Superbowl of polo—the Argentine Open—and won! In fact, his team has won 5 years in a row (Cohen, 2015), and in 2016 and 2017, he won while riding the original Cuartetera and her clones (Ricker, 2017).  
• Barbra Streisand was recently on the cover of Variety magazine with her cloned dogs. Ms. Streisand explains how heartbroken she was to lose her dog after 14 years, and with advice from a friend, had her dog cloned at ViaGen in Texas. The cost for this process is $50,000. Of four puppies, the runt of the littler died, but Streisand kept 2 of the others and gave the third to a daughter of a friend (Streisand, 2018).   

Answer the following question:

• Based on research and evidence related to DNA or the process of cloning a mammal, did you find that there are differences between a clone and a "normal" animal?  

Then elaborate on ONE of these topics:

1. Explain your personal opinions about eating a cloned animal. Would you expect meat or milk from a clone to taste the same as that from naturally conceived animals?
2. Is it fair or ethical to use cloned horses in competition?  
3. Could the $50,000 spent to clone a dog be better spent rescuing dogs? If cost were no obstacle, would you clone a beloved pet?

Answer 1

Genes are governed by the environment and therefore, barring traits that are governed only by the genes and NOT the environment, the cloned animals might not be the same as their normal counterpart.

For the same reason, the taste of meat or milk from a cloned animal might not be the same as that of a naturally conceived animal as it depends on the kind of nutrition the cloned animal gets and whether it is able to cope up with the environment as that of it's natural counterpart.

Whether it is ethical to consume cloned animals, well, consuming animals that are genetically modified, or those animals treated with hormones and other chemicals to induce their growth would me more of a concern than choosing to eat a cloned animal.

Creating just another identical copy might have proven beneficial in the case of horses but I wouldn't consider it an unfair practice to use cloned horses in a polo match. Cloning has its limitations in that there is no genetic improvement as in the case of breeding. Although cloned horses might do well in polo matches, they might not fare well when pitted against another superior breed. One might think of cloning the superior breed too, then again, the spirit of competition would be lost more than anything.

In my opinion I would rather adopt another dog instead of cloning. Cloning might yield an identical pet and satisfy your immediate emotional need, but so would adopting another dog, although it would take longer to get used to the new pet. Also, a cloned pet dog might not behave the same way as its normal counterpart, the owner may find solace in keeping one of its siblings instead.