How Is Embryonic Stem Cell Research Related to Cloning?
The distinction between “reproductive cloning” and “therapeutic cloning” is misleading because the technology involved is essentially the same. The most common practice for obtaining a clone is simply to enucleate an egg (that is, remove its DNA), take the DNA from the animal that you want to clone and inject that DNA into the enucleated egg, and voila! A clone is born. We can already do this with just about every animal. “Therapeutic cloning” was specifically developed as an answer to the problem of tissue rejection. It entails the same process I just described—somatic cell nuclear transfer—using donor DNA from a cell of the patient to create a genetically identical embryo. After a number of days the stem cells are extracted, destroying the embryo, and the stem cells are used to treat the patient’s disease or replace dying tissue. Both reproductive and therapeutic cloning begin by creating a human life. The distinction in the procedures is merely the intended purpose. In reproduct
