Cloning conundrum

[jamesbb]

I’m not sure exactly where to start. I guess the first question I should ask is what is the catholic stance on cloning? Is it cloning of any kind or is it the cloning of a complete animal or human. The reason I ask is because I was thinking of the scripture (I don’t recall which one it is) where Jesus heals someone on the sabeth and then asks his critics who among them would not save his cow or son had they fallen into a well on the sabeth. Is he saying that if you have the ability to do good than you should do so? So if we have the ability to clone healthy functional body parts (I’m not saying whole bodies because I can’t imagine an instance when that would be acceptable) that can be used to save lives should we do so? Or are we still stepping over the line?

 

[EvelynMilne]

Cloning is making an exact copy of a human or animal. Stem cells are used to develop body parts. They are two entirely different procedures.
Cloning of a human is immoral. I don’t know about animals but I don’t see what would be the piont of this except to show that it can be done.
Using adult or placental blood stem cells to create body parts or repair damaged or diseased cells is permissable and has been very successful. Using embryonic stem cells entails killing the embryo which is a human life. It is morally evil. However, this is currently being done but has yeilded no success whatsoever.

 

[jamesbb]

thank you.

 

[Ruthie]

I don’t know about animals but I don’t see what would be the piont of this except to show that it can be done.

There are reasons. How good they are, I don’t know.

It would be like frozen semen, through which one can breed a female to a superior male who has been long dead. This could improve your bloodlines.

With cloning, you could clone both superior males and superior females, and keep cloning them forever.

In fact, I believe the horse racing authorities have already banned entering a cloned horse in a race. Can you imagine having to compete against Man O’ War or Secretariat? Forever?

In one breed of dogs with which I am familiar, there is a litter known as the “Butch and Jill cross,” bred many years ago, that had an excellent effect on the hunting ability of the breed. Breeders today will still brag, “My dog has the Butch and Jill cross 5 times in 7 generations.”

If Butch and Jill had been cloned, then we could all buy a pup from them, if we had the money. Our dogs could all be descended from Butch and Jill, and from nobody else.

On the other hand, there would be no breed diversity. There would be little chance to develop a *different *bloodline that could also produce World Champions.

And if Butch and Jill had genetic defects, they’d be “doubled up” each time the pups were bred to each other, and get worse and worse. And if all our dogs were descended from Butch and Jill, there would be no healthier bloodline that we could “out-cross” to.

Think I’d better go to bed, I’m rambling…

Goodnight,

Ruthie

 

[mapleoak]

I don’t know about animals but I don’t see what would be the piont of this except to show that it can be done.

Personally, as a farmer myself who makes heavy use of artificial insemination in addition to natural matings, I would say from a genetic progress standpoint, cloning is a dead end. An animal which is not an improvement over its dam (which is what a clone is) is lost time. In my field, my animals have to be constantly improving over successive generations and cloning does not afford that progress. It is of much more value to select proven herd sires from nationally ranked sire summaries and use them heavily through artificial insemination.
However it is not presently very economical. Just having an embryo transfer performed as a result of a purely natural breeding is currently very expensive, although in many cases, depending on the genetic makeup of the progeny involved, it can certainly be worth the expense. Many inferior female animals can carry the progeny of animals of higher quality by serving as an incubator during gestation. Embryo transplants allow one to make use of animals which are not themselves suitable for selecting progeny from since they are able to carry genetically superior offspring from genetically superior donors.
The cloning procedure adds another large expense on top of the already expensive embryo transfer procedure. The result is a high proliferation of a concentrated genetic makeup in a small selective group. This is not desirable from a herd improvement standpoint. Selective line breeding allows much more rapid results.
As a dairy farmer, I have been involved in all types of breeding. From semen collection and freezing in nitrogen, artificial insemination of females, embryo transplants from donor female to receptive females, selective breeding by the natural method, culling and/or slaughter of unfit animals. I haven’t been involved in cloning and don’t have much desire to do so, since it is a genetic dead end, on top of having no cost benefit. The purpose behind any breeding system is to produce offspring which are genetically superior to their parents. Cloning maintains the status quo with no improvement in successive generations. It also requires the use of embryo transplants in which the high cost is seldom worth pursuing even after initial natural breedings. Any farm animal which you will ever see is the product of ages upon ages of careful breeding and careful selection.
None of this immoral as animals are not made in the image and likeness of God and do not have everlasting life.
It is no more immoral to artificially breed an animal than it is to slaughter an ‘unfit’ animal for food or to purposely raise animals for slaughter.
The cloning of human beings however, is not only an intrinsic evil, but the procedure itself is compromised of many intrinsically evil acts and therefore is condemned by the Church.

Can you imagine having to compete against Man O’ War or Secretariat? Forever?

I wouldn’t mind, since a good breeding program aims to surpass these animals, not maintain the red line.