Colin O'Malley
Since Dolly the cloned sheep’s 1996 debut to the world, the practice of animal cloning has become increasingly popular, although still largely unregulated, as scientists look to find ways to replicate the living.
Cloning appears to be something straight out of Jurassic Park. There are essentially two sides to the argument. One side states that animal cloning and by extension, the cloning of humans, is a pipe dream while the other argument declares that cloning is a reality that will soon be properly executed and regulated.
Commercially, the idea of pet cloning makes a lot of sense as many people would line up to see their once dead dog or cat essentially brought back to life in a familiar but technically new form. Two instances of pet cloning have been marked at $35,000 for a cloned cat made by Sinogene a Beijing based pet cloning company and around $50,000 for a cloned dog made by ViaGen Pets a Texas based company. Both instances show the huge margin for making profit off of animal cloning.
Sentimentality is an incredibly strong emotion and cloning could prevent these feelings of loss and tragic nostalgia that can come from the loss of a beloved pet. According to Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory, the loss of a loved one (including a pet) creates an intense emotional and physical reaction that can hinder decision-making skills. However, despite the possible effects, cloning has yet to produce anything that directly disrupted nature.
Along with this, cloning has already been thoroughly executed, as all things from dogs beginning in 2005 with Snuppy, the first cloned dog, to monkeys in 1999 when Tetra, the first cloned monkey, was cloned through artificial twinning.
Cloning is no longer science fiction. It is a reality that is permitted by nature. Cloning is now a successful experiment, and no adverse side effects have been created within the environment. While humans are far more intricate than animals, the cloning of animals provides us a baseline for how the process will affect humans. Currently, animal cloning has produced no backlash from nature which makes criticism of the process mostly unfounded.
