blog 32

I’m not exactly sure how I can make the topic of Identical twins timely.  I believe this topic isn’t so much current but has made progress in understanding more about identical twins.  I guess the best way to make this topic timely would be to consider the possibilities of human cloning.  Cloning allows us to make a genetically identical copy of a person.  This would be an unnaturally way to make identical twins although an age difference exists.  Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human, human cell, or human tissue. Therapeutic cloning involves cloning cells from an adult for use in medicine and is an active area of research, while reproductive cloning would involve making cloned humans. Such reproductive cloning has not been performed and is illegal in many countries. A third type of cloning called replacement cloning is a theoretical possibility, and would be a combination of therapeutic and reproductive cloning. Replacement cloning would entail the replacement of an extensively damaged, failed, or failing body through cloning followed by whole or partial brain transplant.  I believe that this is the purpose that human cloning will ultimately achieve, a way to immortalize yourself.  Basically you can just upgrade to a healthier body by stealing your identical twin’s, made in the lab, body.  The ethical question that helps make it a current topic is whether this twin made in the lab has it’s own human rights.  It wouldn’t be right to take advantage of this unnaturally born person who would have his or her own uniqueness.