If human cloning technology is legalized and implemented, what effect would it have on the gene pool? could we stop sexual reproduction and rely fully on cloning?
Some believe that fears of human cloning are based off of ignorance and fear of new scientific developments.
Arguments for human cloning suggest that it may allow us to weed out genetic disease and enhance desirable traits. However, setting ethics aside, if human cloning were to become legal and a common practice we would be essentially endangering the human species (Johnson, On Science). From a biological point of view, when you begin to artificially manipulate the gene pool by cloning you lower diversity. Because of this, you set the population up for the risk of mass death of epidemic proportions if any environmental changes were to occur (Shao, Ban on Human Cloning).
Another effect that cloning would subject us to is inbreeding. Eventually everyone would end up with the same genotype and keep reproducing among themselves. This would lead us to our own extinction. In the words of Richard Nicholson of the British Bulletin of Medical Ethics we would be “sowing the seeds of our own destruction" (Mautner, 141).
Due to these findings it is likely that the human species will never be able to stop reproducing sexually.
Arguments for human cloning suggest that it may allow us to weed out genetic disease and enhance desirable traits. However, setting ethics aside, if human cloning were to become legal and a common practice we would be essentially endangering the human species (Johnson, On Science). From a biological point of view, when you begin to artificially manipulate the gene pool by cloning you lower diversity. Because of this, you set the population up for the risk of mass death of epidemic proportions if any environmental changes were to occur (Shao, Ban on Human Cloning).
Another effect that cloning would subject us to is inbreeding. Eventually everyone would end up with the same genotype and keep reproducing among themselves. This would lead us to our own extinction. In the words of Richard Nicholson of the British Bulletin of Medical Ethics we would be “sowing the seeds of our own destruction" (Mautner, 141).
Due to these findings it is likely that the human species will never be able to stop reproducing sexually.