Oooh, I love this argument! We studied cloning at uni – in fact, one of our lecturers was the head of the team that created Dolly (the sheep).
I think cloning to replicate a pet is a bit absurd. Lassie is right – emotionally (and it’s usually the animal’s nature ppl get attached to) it’s impossible to replicate the nurture factors which influence behaviour. Also – and most folks aren’t aware of this – although the DNA will be identical (obviously), things like pigmentation – i.e. coat pattern, won’t.
I’ll explain – imagine a black and white BC. The clone will have exactly the same amount of black and white pigmentation – but it won’t be in exactly the same place, as this factor is determined by growth in utero. Often patterns will be similar – but they won’t be identical!
As far as cloning being wrong on any level – for me the jury is out on this – at present, cloning techniques are still far from perfect – if I remember rightly, it used to take hundreds of fertilised eggs to produce one live birth, as so few cloned embryos survive. So it’s hard to rationalise this.
But if it can develop cures for diseases – human or animal, then in that respect no, I’m not against it. However, a cloned life is a life nonetheless, so is it ethical to create one life to save another? … The debate goes on.
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