Confessing a care for clones

Disclaimer: I’m not really going to talk about stem cells
in this column because first, I don’t know what they are;
second, I’ve already been tested for them; and last, I
don’t understand or care why everyone gets their knickers in
a twist whenever someone mentions them. All I know about stem cells
is that they might help cure AIDS or cancer, which I guess bothers
some people.

With that said, I’d like to be the first one at the Daily
Bruin to give a hearty, UCLA-style welcome to Snuppy.

Those of you who are still reading may be wondering who or what
Snuppy is. According to the eminent South Korean scientist Hwang
Woo-suk, Snuppy is the world’s first cloned puppy. Mr.
Woo-suk has been at the forefront of cloning research for some time
now and has added some impressive achievements to his resume,
including the cloning of a cow, a pig, a human embryo and now the
dog, Snuppy.

So in light of these recent events, everyone’s been making
quite a fuss about cloning. At first I thought cloning sounded like
a pretty good idea, because I personally would love a duplicate of
myself. My clone could write all of my columns, take all of my
classes, work at my job ““ the possibilities are endless.

But I did some actual research (really) and discovered that the
process of cloning doesn’t exactly work like Calvin’s
Duplicator (or even Homer’s magical hammock, for that
matter). No, the process of cloning involves taking DNA from a cell
or two of the original organism and inserting it into a donor egg,
which is then implanted into a host uterus. Eventually the cloned
embryo is birthed just like a regular one, but it has the same DNA
as its predecessor.

So that’s cloning in a nutshell. Sounds pretty easy,
doesn’t it? I mean, it seems like all you need to clone
successfully are good hands and a precise eyedropper.
Unfortunately, DNA turns out to be pretty fragile stuff, and
they’ve been having some developmental problems with cloned
animals, such as premature death and genetic abnormalities. In
fact, Snuppy was the only successfully cloned puppy out of a
thousand embryos.

But, we shouldn’t let this deter us from pursuing animal
cloning. Many people die needlessly each year without needed organ
donors, or their transplanted organ is rejected by their body.
There is promising research on using certain animal organs that
have been “humanized” with cloning technology to
prevent the problem of organ rejection, and scientists are also
researching how animal brain cells can help alleviate
Huntington’s disease.

Those are fairly positive things, right? I realize that this is
America, and some people get pissed off no matter what you do. But
I imagine that most of us would like to see a good portion of
debilitating diseases neutralized and a better quality of life for
all of us. That’s not unreasonable, is it?

I think we can all agree that eventually, it will be possible to
clone humans and expect the clones to live a relatively normal
life. To me, that’s significantly different from cloning dogs
and sheep, and there will inevitably arise many ethical questions.
What purpose would cloning humans serve? Whose custody should they
be in until adulthood? Should they get special parking spaces?
These are all difficult questions that certainly require careful
thought. So I’m moving on.

You know how we in America have a “do-not-fly” list?
It’s a list that prevents you from flying on a commercial
airplane if your name is on it (though apparently Osama bin Laden
wasn’t even on it for years after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks ““ welcome aboard, Mr. bin Laden).

I bring this up because I think we desperately need a
“do-not-clone” list, in anticipation of certain people
who might want themselves cloned, much to the dismay of everyone
else. Gary Coleman comes to mind. So do the Olsen twins (assuming
of course that they aren’t already).

One last thing that we need to keep in mind when discussing
clones is that they are innocent. Regardless of whether something
enters the world as a clone, artificially reproduced or naturally
born, it wasn’t its choice, and it shouldn’t be
persecuted because of it.

Snuppy the puppy probably doesn’t know that he is the very
first cloned dog, and I don’t think it matters to him.
He’s just happy being a puppy ““ and peeing all over
everything.

I realize that I’ve kind of gone all Dr. Phil and
after-school special in this column, and for that I apologize.

I promise you that my next column will be tasteless, irreverent
and irresponsible, not at all like this one.

If you have any questions or concerns about something in
this column, blame my clone, because he wrote it. He can be reached
at akaney@media.ucla.edu.

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