Think of a world where infertile, childless couples can go to a medical clinic, purchase cell replacements for malfunctioning cells in the reproductive system and, thus, bear kids; a world where people afflicted with degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease can replace their damaged cells and be cured again; a world where the crippled can get the much-needed cells to revive their spinal chord and walk again.
Those amazing medical and scientific feats are only the tip of the iceberg when the potential of human cloning is concerned. Developed to its extreme, human cloning can make disease and sickness, maybe even physical suffering altogether, a thing of the past.
There are two basic kinds of human cloning and, separately, each offers us a deeper insight as to the vast possibilities of this burgeoning new science. In reproductive cloning, a cloned embryo is implanted in a woman’s uterus from where, theoretically, a normal baby develops that is genetically identical to the DNA donor. The second type of cloning, therapeutic cloning aims to provide replacement organs or tissue for people. The cloned embryo contains DNA taken from...