Cons Of Animal Cloning
The meat you’re eating could’ve come from an animal that was tortured and traumatized its whole life through the process of animal cloning. Animal cloning is one of the most controversial issues addressed in today’s society. There have been extensive studies and research done on animal cloning and its effects. The more research conducted, the more curiosity, causing competition between scientists to achieve the ultimate result of perfecting the animal cloning science. The beneficial effects of animal cloning are scarce, while the extensive damages done to all animals in these experiments are horrendous and inhumane. Animal cloning, although popular today, is a relatively new idea. When the idea first came about nearly 50 years ago, people
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were wary of the idea. Although there were many debates on the topic the first successful attempt at cloning an embryo was in 1979. The National Humane Genome Research states, “…researchers produced the first genetically identical mice by splitting mouse embryos in the test tube and then implanting the resulting embryos into the wombs of adult female mice” (“Cloning”). This attempt was successful at cloning the embryos but the animals were never successfully delivered. The first attempt at animal cloning failed, but, in 1996 scientists created the first successfully cloned animal after 276 attempts. The animal was a sheep named Dolly. After this successful attempt, scientists all around the world began attempting to clone animals. So far, cats, deer, dogs, horses, mules, ox, rabbits, rats, and a rhesus monkey have been cloned (“Cloning”). While all of this sounds highly intriguing, the grueling procedures that the surrogate mothers and clones go through are horrific. Cloned animals are born by performing an experiment, a completely unnatural way to enter the world. These animals are seen as experiments their whole life. The Humane Society of the United States says:
Cloning involves invasive and painful procedures. The egg 'donors' and/or surrogate mothers are subjected to painful hormone treatments to manipulate their reproductive cycles. These animals are also subjected to invasive surgery to harvest eggs or implant embryos, and the surrogate mothers endure an additional surgery to deliver the baby. (“Cloning: HSUS”)
As stated before, in the first successful attempt to clone an animal it took 276 attempts before it was corrected. This means that the surrogate mothers for these embryos must go through harmful hormonal changes and must undergo surgery. This type of pain is brought onto these animals in the name of science and science often fails them. The Humane Society of the United States also said that since 99 percent of attempts fail there are many of animals and embryos used. (“Cloning: HSUS”). All science is an imperfect science. In order to achieve the ultimate goal these experiments have to be tried repeatedly. These painful, invasive procedures have to fail and be corrected for the ultimate goal to be reached. The only way for the surrogate mothers to produce these embryos is for their reproductive cycles to be changed. The first step for the scientist is to figure out how to change the reproductive systems and how to keep them this way through the pregnancy. These experiments have to be done before the embryos are even placed in the surrogate mother. By the time the surrogate starts the pregnancy they are weaker than they should be and still have countless procedures to go. These animals undergo the pain that no living being should ever have to endure. Science is an ever-changing concept, but inflicting this kind of torment on any living being is wrong in every sense of the word. Farmers raise animals for them just to be slaughtered in the end. Cloned animals are no different than regular animals. If they live long enough and are healthy enough to be slaughtered and manufactured for food, then this will happen. The FDA said, “The FDA has concluded that meat and milk from cow, pig, and goat clones and the offspring of any animal clones are as safe as food we eat every day” (“Animal Cloning”). The problem with their assessment is that there are many people who disagree with the way the FDA assess the food that is allowed to be consumed. They have approved our everyday food which is overloaded with GMO’s and harmful chemicals. Cloned animals begin taking in chemicals before being born. They grow up with these chemicals in their body. The FDA is right that the food we consume now is no worse or better for us than that of cloned animals because the food consumed now is appalling. Secondly, if the meat that a manufacturer produces is from a cloned animal it does not have to state that on the packaging. They said, “FDA is not requiring any additional measures relating to food derived from adult clones of cattle, swine, and goats, and the offspring of clones of any species traditionally consumed as food, including labeling” (“Animal Cloning”). The FDA is saying that if the meat being consumed is from a cloned animal it does not have to be printed because it is not a risk to consumer safety. They are deciding that it is not any of the consumers concern to make the decision on if they want to consume cloned animal meat or not. Consumers have the right to know everything about the food being consumed. It is not the place of the FDA, or any other company, to decide if consumers have the right to know what is being consumed. Placing on the package that the meat comes from a cloned animal is no different than placing the ingredients that are in meat or dairy. The production companies of these meats are going to use the fact that the FDA is not requiring for it to be put on the label. The rights of consumers in any aspect of life has been fought for in the past, but this keeps looking more and more like government regulation of consumer’s rights, an issue that was thought to be already resolved. Finally, the initial process of artificial insemination is not an exact science and, more often than not, fails. Before a cloned animal can be born it has to be manufactured in the lab, which has been said previously. After the embryos are made in the lab they have to be implanted into the surrogate mother. Artificial insemination is nowhere near being a perfect science. The American Anti-Vivisection Society says, “Only a very small percentage of cloned embryos—typically zero to three percent—will be successfully delivered, usually by cesarean section. Of those who are born, only a relatively small percentage are healthy enough to live for more than a few days or weeks” (“End Animal Cloning”). More often than not, artificial inseminations fail. This means that artificial insemination being one, of the many, experiments this animal goes through rarely works. There is money being put into research for cloned animals and yet artificial insemination only has a zero to three percent success rate. This is yet another example as to how the surrogate mothers of cloned animals are uncared for. The life of these mother’s is being thrown around. Scientists think that because they are animals that the concept of the value of life goes away. The startling truth is that the number of attempted artificial inseminations is so high in numbers that they aren’t even all recorded. As said before, countless of dollars and years have been put into perfecting the animal cloning science and none of it has paid off. The American Anti-Vivisection Society says, “Despite years of research, more than 95 percent of cloning attempts fail. A significant number of cloned animals, as well as surrogate mothers who carry clone pregnancies, suffer serious and painful diseases and deformities to produce each ‘successful’ clone” (“End Animal Cloning”). This reiterates the fact that the clones aren’t the only animals that have to suffer because of this process. The surrogate mother, often times, brings an animal into the world just for it to die days after. This quote goes to show that the scientists 15 minutes of fame isn’t worth the quality of a living beings life. Many pro-animal cloning activists will say that animal cloning can help lower the cost of production because there will be more meat to produce.
NYLN said:
A lot of clamor has been going on in the United States against mass production of meat by cramping animals in cages and other cruel means. One way that scientists say will solve this problem is by cloning muscle and flesh samples of animals and growing them in laboratories. This takes the animals out of the equation. And because only good quality meat will be cloned, such process can ensure the public that they will be eating healthier, safer meat in the near future. (“Cloning Animals”)
Admittedly, this sounds like a good enough reason, ethically and scientifically, to consider animal cloning, but the problem with this is that there will be a substantial lack of biodiversity in the world. Biodiversity is the diversity of life on this planet. Cloning inhibits animals that aren’t normal producers of food from thriving. The Center for Food Safety says, “Over 90 percent of U.S. dairy cows are Holsteins; eight of the fifteen breeds of swine raised in the U.S. in the middle of the twentieth century no longer exist; only five breeds make up nearly the entire U.S. poultry flock, and almost all white eggs come from one variety of chicken” (“Center for Food Safety”). Without biodiversity on earth species will slowly begin to die and become extinct. This would be harmful to science and humanity rather than furthering science and that is the overall goal of animal
cloning. Pro-animal cloning activists will also say that cloning could be the potential end of all endangered species. Independent News says, “They believe that cloning offers another way of preserving the unique genetic identify of a rare species in the body of living animals that could be used for breeding purposes” (“The Independent”) when asking scientists about animal cloning and endangered species. While this is a phenomenal idea, there is no way that most countries in the world could afford to do this. Sustainable Table says, “It costs about $20,000 to clone a cow” (“Shaping Our Food”). This is just the statistic for the common cow. Cloning an endangered species would cost a great amount more. America is in billions of dollars of debt, there is no way that an endangered species could be cloned here. America is also a developed country and many other countries are undeveloped and could not clone endangered species either. It is not a feasible goal.
Animal cloning is still in its earliest stages but, when it is in full effect everything will change. The way food is consumed, the food eaten, the debt of the world, the lives of animals and the wellbeing of future generations will depend on the animal cloning science. Change is the only constant thing on the world. The human race has worked for decades to change things for the better but if animal cloning is not stopped the potential damages are extensive. I propose that petitions should be signed for the FDA to dig further into animal cloning and the harmful damages it can cause to our bodies, not to mention all of the animals involved. The only way to move forward in this fight is to do it together.
were wary of the idea. Although there were many debates on the topic the first successful attempt at cloning an embryo was in 1979. The National Humane Genome Research states, “…researchers produced the first genetically identical mice by splitting mouse embryos in the test tube and then implanting the resulting embryos into the wombs of adult female mice” (“Cloning”). This attempt was successful at cloning the embryos but the animals were never successfully delivered. The first attempt at animal cloning failed, but, in 1996 scientists created the first successfully cloned animal after 276 attempts. The animal was a sheep named Dolly. After this successful attempt, scientists all around the world began attempting to clone animals. So far, cats, deer, dogs, horses, mules, ox, rabbits, rats, and a rhesus monkey have been cloned (“Cloning”). While all of this sounds highly intriguing, the grueling procedures that the surrogate mothers and clones go through are horrific. Cloned animals are born by performing an experiment, a completely unnatural way to enter the world. These animals are seen as experiments their whole life. The Humane Society of the United States says:
Cloning involves invasive and painful procedures. The egg 'donors' and/or surrogate mothers are subjected to painful hormone treatments to manipulate their reproductive cycles. These animals are also subjected to invasive surgery to harvest eggs or implant embryos, and the surrogate mothers endure an additional surgery to deliver the baby. (“Cloning: HSUS”)
As stated before, in the first successful attempt to clone an animal it took 276 attempts before it was corrected. This means that the surrogate mothers for these embryos must go through harmful hormonal changes and must undergo surgery. This type of pain is brought onto these animals in the name of science and science often fails them. The Humane Society of the United States also said that since 99 percent of attempts fail there are many of animals and embryos used. (“Cloning: HSUS”). All science is an imperfect science. In order to achieve the ultimate goal these experiments have to be tried repeatedly. These painful, invasive procedures have to fail and be corrected for the ultimate goal to be reached. The only way for the surrogate mothers to produce these embryos is for their reproductive cycles to be changed. The first step for the scientist is to figure out how to change the reproductive systems and how to keep them this way through the pregnancy. These experiments have to be done before the embryos are even placed in the surrogate mother. By the time the surrogate starts the pregnancy they are weaker than they should be and still have countless procedures to go. These animals undergo the pain that no living being should ever have to endure. Science is an ever-changing concept, but inflicting this kind of torment on any living being is wrong in every sense of the word. Farmers raise animals for them just to be slaughtered in the end. Cloned animals are no different than regular animals. If they live long enough and are healthy enough to be slaughtered and manufactured for food, then this will happen. The FDA said, “The FDA has concluded that meat and milk from cow, pig, and goat clones and the offspring of any animal clones are as safe as food we eat every day” (“Animal Cloning”). The problem with their assessment is that there are many people who disagree with the way the FDA assess the food that is allowed to be consumed. They have approved our everyday food which is overloaded with GMO’s and harmful chemicals. Cloned animals begin taking in chemicals before being born. They grow up with these chemicals in their body. The FDA is right that the food we consume now is no worse or better for us than that of cloned animals because the food consumed now is appalling. Secondly, if the meat that a manufacturer produces is from a cloned animal it does not have to state that on the packaging. They said, “FDA is not requiring any additional measures relating to food derived from adult clones of cattle, swine, and goats, and the offspring of clones of any species traditionally consumed as food, including labeling” (“Animal Cloning”). The FDA is saying that if the meat being consumed is from a cloned animal it does not have to be printed because it is not a risk to consumer safety. They are deciding that it is not any of the consumers concern to make the decision on if they want to consume cloned animal meat or not. Consumers have the right to know everything about the food being consumed. It is not the place of the FDA, or any other company, to decide if consumers have the right to know what is being consumed. Placing on the package that the meat comes from a cloned animal is no different than placing the ingredients that are in meat or dairy. The production companies of these meats are going to use the fact that the FDA is not requiring for it to be put on the label. The rights of consumers in any aspect of life has been fought for in the past, but this keeps looking more and more like government regulation of consumer’s rights, an issue that was thought to be already resolved. Finally, the initial process of artificial insemination is not an exact science and, more often than not, fails. Before a cloned animal can be born it has to be manufactured in the lab, which has been said previously. After the embryos are made in the lab they have to be implanted into the surrogate mother. Artificial insemination is nowhere near being a perfect science. The American Anti-Vivisection Society says, “Only a very small percentage of cloned embryos—typically zero to three percent—will be successfully delivered, usually by cesarean section. Of those who are born, only a relatively small percentage are healthy enough to live for more than a few days or weeks” (“End Animal Cloning”). More often than not, artificial inseminations fail. This means that artificial insemination being one, of the many, experiments this animal goes through rarely works. There is money being put into research for cloned animals and yet artificial insemination only has a zero to three percent success rate. This is yet another example as to how the surrogate mothers of cloned animals are uncared for. The life of these mother’s is being thrown around. Scientists think that because they are animals that the concept of the value of life goes away. The startling truth is that the number of attempted artificial inseminations is so high in numbers that they aren’t even all recorded. As said before, countless of dollars and years have been put into perfecting the animal cloning science and none of it has paid off. The American Anti-Vivisection Society says, “Despite years of research, more than 95 percent of cloning attempts fail. A significant number of cloned animals, as well as surrogate mothers who carry clone pregnancies, suffer serious and painful diseases and deformities to produce each ‘successful’ clone” (“End Animal Cloning”). This reiterates the fact that the clones aren’t the only animals that have to suffer because of this process. The surrogate mother, often times, brings an animal into the world just for it to die days after. This quote goes to show that the scientists 15 minutes of fame isn’t worth the quality of a living beings life. Many pro-animal cloning activists will say that animal cloning can help lower the cost of production because there will be more meat to produce.
NYLN said:
A lot of clamor has been going on in the United States against mass production of meat by cramping animals in cages and other cruel means. One way that scientists say will solve this problem is by cloning muscle and flesh samples of animals and growing them in laboratories. This takes the animals out of the equation. And because only good quality meat will be cloned, such process can ensure the public that they will be eating healthier, safer meat in the near future. (“Cloning Animals”)
Admittedly, this sounds like a good enough reason, ethically and scientifically, to consider animal cloning, but the problem with this is that there will be a substantial lack of biodiversity in the world. Biodiversity is the diversity of life on this planet. Cloning inhibits animals that aren’t normal producers of food from thriving. The Center for Food Safety says, “Over 90 percent of U.S. dairy cows are Holsteins; eight of the fifteen breeds of swine raised in the U.S. in the middle of the twentieth century no longer exist; only five breeds make up nearly the entire U.S. poultry flock, and almost all white eggs come from one variety of chicken” (“Center for Food Safety”). Without biodiversity on earth species will slowly begin to die and become extinct. This would be harmful to science and humanity rather than furthering science and that is the overall goal of animal
cloning. Pro-animal cloning activists will also say that cloning could be the potential end of all endangered species. Independent News says, “They believe that cloning offers another way of preserving the unique genetic identify of a rare species in the body of living animals that could be used for breeding purposes” (“The Independent”) when asking scientists about animal cloning and endangered species. While this is a phenomenal idea, there is no way that most countries in the world could afford to do this. Sustainable Table says, “It costs about $20,000 to clone a cow” (“Shaping Our Food”). This is just the statistic for the common cow. Cloning an endangered species would cost a great amount more. America is in billions of dollars of debt, there is no way that an endangered species could be cloned here. America is also a developed country and many other countries are undeveloped and could not clone endangered species either. It is not a feasible goal.
Animal cloning is still in its earliest stages but, when it is in full effect everything will change. The way food is consumed, the food eaten, the debt of the world, the lives of animals and the wellbeing of future generations will depend on the animal cloning science. Change is the only constant thing on the world. The human race has worked for decades to change things for the better but if animal cloning is not stopped the potential damages are extensive. I propose that petitions should be signed for the FDA to dig further into animal cloning and the harmful damages it can cause to our bodies, not to mention all of the animals involved. The only way to move forward in this fight is to do it together.