Quotation of the Day

“The Ramones don’t jam.”

— Jerry Harrison

About our schedule

MARCH 21: NO CLASS

MARCH 26: NO CLASS

The next time we meet:

MARCH 28: QUIZ #4 ON SINGER

CLONING

How babies are made (PG version)

Sperm fertilizes ovum.

This takes place in fallopian tube.

Fertilized ovum is a single cell. It divides a few times.

The cell-cluster travels down tube, into uterus.

The cell-cluster attaches to the uterus wall.

Nine months later, a baby is born.

But . . .The process of fertilization and cell-division is very delicate, and things can go wrong.

About 40% of the time, the cell-cluster never implants in the uterine wall.

It is washed out with the monthly menstrual flow, and the woman never knows that she almost got pregnant.

But . . .1 in 12 couples is infertile, and today this is treated as a medical problem.

Treatments include:

• scheduled sex

• fertility drugs

• IVF

In vitro fertilization

Some facts about in vitro fertilization

• Current cost: $10,000 per try

• Chances of success: 25%

• Chances of birth defects: same as in “normal” pregnancy

• In U.S., since 1981, about 45,000 children have been born in this way.

Leon Kass

President Bush’s Ethics Adviser

Leading opponents of IVF

Pope John Paul II

Ethical Objections:

• It’s unnatural--we are “tampering with sacred things.”

• the problem of the discarded embryos

• the slippery slope

Cystic Fibrosis

• a genetically transmitted disease

• 1 in 22 caucasians are carriers

• if both parents are carriers, 25% chance the baby will actually have the disease

What can be done? Genetic screening

• instead of beginning pregnancy in the “normal” way, use IVF techniques

• after fertilization occurs, when zygote is 4-8 cells, see if zygote will have CF

• implant only zygotes without CF

• so far there have been about 200 successful screenings of this sort

Cloning?

CloningSomatic Cell Transfer

The Three Most Important Facts About Human Cloning

1. A clone would be a baby just like any other baby.

2. There is no important difference between a clone and an identical twin.

3. You cannot duplicate yourself.

Would cloning be unethical? The most popular arguments:

• A clone would not have a soul.

• A clone would have no mother or father.

• Clones could be used for “spare parts.”

• Rich people would want to make copies of themselves.

• If we cloned Michael Jordan five times, we would have a hell of a basketball them.

Would cloning serve any good purpose?

• A couple has a child, call him Bobby.

• Bobby is killed.

• They want to have another child,

• but the man is sterile.

• Bobby’s tissue samples still exist.

• They can use SCT techniques to have a child with Bobby’s DNA.

• Would this be wrong?

But there’s a good reason why human cloning should not be done at the present time:

• Our techniques are not yet good enough to ensure that the baby would be OK.