Ethical issues relating to Cloning

Cloning is the most recent evolution of selective assisted breeding in animal husbandry. Cloning animals is a reliable way of reproducing superior livestock genetics and ensuring herds are maintained at the highest quality possible. However some ethical concerns have been raised about cloning, which may be broadly divided into two categories: concern about the effect of cloning on animal and human welfare, and objection to the principle of cloning, i.e. to producing an animal by a means other than fertilization.

Currently, cloning is associated with an increase in animal suffering when compared with production of animals by standard breeding methods. This is due to surgeries performed to obtain oocytes or transfer embryos, pregnancy losses, sickness and death of neonates, low-level abnormalities in surviving young, and possible distress from disease in animals produced as disease models. These concerns are somewhat mitigated by the fact that most of these findings are not unique to cloning; they are also associated with other procedures that have been generally accepted as worthwhile, such as in vitro fertilization and embryo production, oocyte transfer, and embryo transfer.

Concerns about human health focus mainly on consumption of food produced from cloned animals. After years of study, the FDA and the European Food Safety Authority have concluded that consumption of meat or milk from cloned animals poses no public health risk. Therefore, remaining concerns about consumption of food from cloned animals is likely based more on principle than on actual potential for harm. Because cloning is used to produce transgenic animals, many perceived concerns regarding cloning are actually concerns about transgenic animals, which present a completely different set of potential hazards to animal and human health and the environment.

A key ethical question regarding the principle of producing animals by cloning is whether this technique is violating some moral prohibition; ie, that people are “playing God” by producing embryos without using fertilization. A related argument is that cloning turns animals into a commodity or an object, rather than a sentient being, and that producing an animal in this way shows a lack of respect for the animal as an individual. However, animals have been bought and sold since they were domesticated; currently semen and embryos are frozen, shipped across the country, and used to produce desired young. Cloning does not seem to offer any unique distinction in this area.

Practice question: Recently CIRB became second institute in India after NDRI to successfully produce clone of livestock animal. What are potential benefits of producing such clones & key ethical concerns associated with this breakthrough technology?

By: Dr. Vivek Rana