The Collegian

Issue date: 5/12/09 Section: Opinion

Scientists at Seoul National University in South Korea were the first to successfully clone a dog. This clone is an Afghan dog named Snuppy. Although Snuppy may be adorable, cloning for personal use needs to be banned because it is immoral, costly and has the potential to be abused.

Cloning another living creature is like playing God. It is controls life and prevents nature from taking its course. It is neither natural nor moral.

Also, it does not teach society to accept death. Instead of mourning a lost pet, we are promoting people to clone their beloved dog so they will never have to deal with losing it. We should be celebrating death like other cultures, such as Mexico does with Día de los Muertos, as opposed to dismissing it.

However, MSNBC cites a few benefits to cloning. First, it "help[s] in studying treatments of genetic disorders in canines that have similarities to human illnesses including diabetes." Second, it can be used to clone working dogs, such as "sniffers."

Although I see its importance for studying disease and illness, it is has become marketable and available to anyone who has money. When this happens, there is no point to the act of cloning besides that someone cannot bear to deal with death.

With a recession right now, this is the last thing people should be spending money on. According to MSNBC, people spend $100,000 and up to clone their dog.

Instead of wasting money cloning pets, people should adopt. There are plenty of sweet and well- behaved homeless dogs at animal shelters. When we do not have homes for all the animals currently alive, why should we add more?

The New York Times said, "'If anyone thinks they're going to get Fluffy back,' Dr. Lanza [the chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology] said, 'they're gravely mistaken.' A cloned dog is 'likely to be a totally unknown dog, just as if you went to the pound and adopted another, unknown animal.'" Thus, why are individuals not adopting pets since there does not seem to be much difference?

Finally, if we clone dogs, will human clones be the next thing? James Barron, writer at the New York Times, said, "Scientists consider dogs among the most difficult animals to clone because they have an unusual reproductive biology, more so than humans." This seems to imply that human clones are possible. It is a scary idea to think about. Are we really ready for this? Would these clones be real in the sense that you and I are real? If you believe that each person has a soul, do clones have one? There are so many opportunities with something like this for abuse, but will there be laws to protect us from possible exploitation?

Dog cloning is immoral and a waste of money. It should be limited and laws must be created to regulate it so that it is used for medical purposes only and prohibited for personal use.

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