CLONING
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CLONING |
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Definition : reproductive or therapeutic cloning ? |
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Embryo From fertilization to death, the life of a human being continually evolves and passes through various stages : embryo, foetus, newborn, child, etc. The uninterrupted transition from one stage to another takes place completely naturally and thus the person is unaware of any change. The embryo is therefore a human being which begins to develop from the moment fertilisation takes place. There is no pre-embryonic stage because the human being is unable to exist until the two gametes (reproductive cells) have combined. It is the fusion of the two cells that marks the beginning of the development of a new human being. |
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Cloning
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| - By introducing the core of a differentiated cell in an enucleated ovule, thus creating a totipotent cell which is capable of multiplying in the same way as an embryo, just like the Dolly case. Thus whatever the age, a donor can have identical twins of different ages. |
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Reproductive Cloning |
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Therapeutic cloning is actually an interrupted form of reproductive cloning. If it is accepted by the CCNE (National Ethics Consulting Committee) and the Council of State, and thereafter passed by law, allowing the manufacture of cells or of replacement organs, therapeutic cloning rests upon the principal that a human being can be produced in order to be used as raw material for another human being. Can one really cure at any cost… at the cost of ‘human life’? |
| An honest reflection on cloning is thus not to talk about ‘therapeutic and reproductive cloning’, since the very principal of cloning is to ‘reproduce’ an embryo, but to question the complete obsession of reproducing something identical and rejecting an alternative. | |
