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Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. Over the past couple of decades, scientists have made substantial developments and improvements in genetic cloning.

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Over the last 50 years, scientists have conducted cloning experiments on cattle, sheep, cat, deer, dog, horse, mule, ox, rabbit and rats. Through many unsuccessful experiments, researchers finally succeeded in cloning the first mammal from a somatic cell taken from an adult animal.

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Dolly was a female Finn-Dorset sheep and the first mammal that was cloned from an adult somatic cell. It took scientists 276 attempts to finally produce Dolly. She had abnormalities in her DNA (i.e., shortened telomeres) and lived half the average life span of a sheep.

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With the new profound confidence from successfully cloning an animal, scientists and researchers quickly moved to the possibility of cloning humans. Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. Researchers and scientists are currently using the technology and techniques used to clone sheep and other animals to try and clone human embryos.

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The consequences and dangers of cloning include genetic abnormalities and deformities. Some of these include an increase in birth size and a variety of defects in vital organs, such as the liver, brain and heart. Other defects could be premature aging and immune dysfunction. The experimental nature is also another dangerous factor because of its inconsistent results. Dolly the Sheep, the first successful clone, took over 276 attempts. Many of those unsuccessful attempts resulted in genetic abnormalities and deformities.

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Scientist fear the 'immoral' dangers of human cloning | 60 Minutes Australia

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The probability of errors raise ethical and religious concerns among citizens. Another reason that cloning is widely regarded as unethical is due to the exploitation of life and manipulation of living organisms. Religious people also argue that cloning disregards the belief of procreation and personhood. In addition, many question the effects of reproductive cloning on the child/parent relationship, and disagree with the commodification of human life as a research product.

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Jaenisch, Rudolf, and Ian Wilmut. “Don’t Clone Humans! | Science.” Don’t Clone Humans!, Science, 30 Mar. 2001, www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1060463.

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Scientists' primary technique includes using somatic cell nuclear transfer and induced pluripotent stem cells. This procedure starts with the removal of the chromosomes from an egg to create an enucleated egg. The chromosomes are replaced with a nucleus taken from a somatic cell of the individual or embryo to be cloned.

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Therapeutic cloning involves creating a cloned embryo for the sole purpose of producing embryonic stem cells with the same DNA as the donor cell. These stem cells can be used in experiments aimed at understanding disease and developing new treatments for disease. It is not the same as reproductive cloning.