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Is cloning animals for food or medicine acceptable? - Coggle Diagram

- - - - The next stage is developing the embryo. This is started by activinating the egg cell, generally with an electric shock. The embryo usually develops into the blatocyst stage (a hollow ball of cells) inside the lab. It is then either cryopreserved for later use or implanted directly into a surrogate mother.
        
        The surrogate mother then carries the cloned embryo through the normal stages of pregnancy and gives birth to a clone of the original somatic cell donor.
        
        However, it is not a perfect process, and there are many considerations to take into thought when understanding whether it is ethical to use this process at all in the first place on animals
- - - - A major argument often used against the use of cloning in the agriculture industry, especially on farm animals, is the low success rate for such a long and arduous process that costs a lot for both the animal bearing the child and those working on the clone being made. While efficiency varies between mammals, the SCNT cloning method generally has a 1-3% success rate. However, it is much more successful on bovine mammals such as cattle, where it can reach up to 20-25% success rate, according to the NCBI.
        
        Another major argument against the usability and ethicality of the process of cloning farm animals in the agriculture industry is the fact that it often has detrimental effects on the animals that it is used on. It can result in high numbers of miscarriages in the animals that are impregnated, and in high numbers of disability, birth defects and other health issues in the cloned animals according to the NCBI.
        
        Overall, a majority of the arguments levelled against cloning include the multitude of negative health effects it can have against the animals that undergo the process and the animal welfare concerns it raises in general.
    - - A major argument for the usability of this process in the agriculture/medical industry is the fact that it will highly increase the efficiency of the production of important animal products. Being able to both clone animals and breed them naturally will double the rates of animal production, meaning that all products that come from such animals will also have their production rate doubled. This could highly benefit the agriculture industry and provide an economic boost as the amount of products being sold from these animals goes up.
        
        Another argument for the usability of this technology within the agricultural/medicinal industry is that it will help improve the quality of the animals in these farms and build desirable factors in these animals. This is because it would be possible to clone animals with the most desirable factors, and given that clones have exact copies of the original animal's DNA, they would also have the exact same desirable traits. This could lead to an entire population of 'super'-animals on these farms, meaning that they would be highly resistant to diseases and produce the highest quality products.
        
        The most often used arguments for the ethicality and usability of this cloning method in the agriculture/medical industry is that it would greatly increase the efficiency of production of many essential products. Along with this, it is generally argued that it could provide higher quality in said products by cloning the most desirable animals, and provide a boost to the economy by increasing the production and thus the sales of these essential products.
- - - - It could also lead to a rise in unethical and illegal animal cloning and experimentation through the general societal acceptance of this method. If business owners are unwilling to go through the process to legally authorise their cloning/experimentation, and are still using it to boost their sales, it could lead to legal repercussions.
        
        Overall, the boost it provides to sales paired with the legal issues and process that must be undertaken to approve this process could lead to much illegal cloning being used by businesses to increase sales - thus leading to legal repercussions within the industry.