I know we have all seen the robot computer movies that scare us into thinking the world is going to be taken over by artificial intelligence, or those unrealistic alien films with UFO’s sucking up humans, and taking over earth as their own. But have you ever stopped and realised the future of the world does not lie in folklore or technological advancement, rather the rapid development of humans themselves. You are probably sitting thinking ‘well duh, of course humans will determine the future of the world?’, but you might not have regarded the terrifying thought, that somebody that looks exactly like you, actually is you, deciding one day they no longer want a ‘twin’ ie. they are going to kill you – just in case you did not connect those dots.

Before I get into the scary, alarming, fearsome, mind-blowing reality of the idea of human cloning, I want to define what it actually means and the possible pros to such a controversial topic. Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy (or clone) of a human. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning, which is the reproduction of human cells and tissue. However, It does not refer to the natural conception and delivery of identical twins. 

Now when I began considering a world where cloning is normalised, legal and just your average activity that any person does, I was honestly all for it. Imagine being able to see what you look like to people, being able to get you, who is not actually you, to try on clothes and see what they look like; a mirror just does not suffice. Being able to send ‘yourself’ to school if you cannot be bothered going one day. The endless possibilities of being able to get out of plans you do not want to go to, chores you do not want to do, a personal driver?, like come on, what is not to love! Cloning would allow solutions to inconvenient daily tasks, while also making the population and future generations lazy and to put it bluntly, dumb as we eventually you just would not do anything yourself, but lets forget that for now and look at the more positive scientific solutions this genetically identical copy would allow. 

For example, a clone of yourself would allow – in unfortunate circumstances to provide a source of transplant organs or tissue, despite the ethical issue that arises for that. The hope that women who experience infertility could have children created from the cloned cells. It could reduce the impact of disease in ways that vaccinations cannot, allowing complicated maladies like heart disease to be studied and modified to combat the issue. Discovering new ways to prolong the aging process and reducing the overall cost of disease treatments around the world. Being able to ethically create stem cells that would allow better health outcomes for people, especially if they suffer from a rare genetic disease. There are endless medical miracles and opportunities to help people worldwide, but at what cost?

Onto the negative aspects of the medical side of human cloning, I want to begin with something that would actually be very sad. Cloning would reduce the diversity of our genetic makeup. People would become less and less unique causing their survival to become greatly endangered; we need diversity within our genome to reduce the risk of disorders forming because of our close relationship with one another. It could cause a divide among people. The chance that the clones would not be treated as human beings would evidently lead to social unrest and divide, as well as the probability of aggressive debates or protests to stop the legalisation of it. This genetic copy of people may also decrease the overall value of life. The concept of being about to copy yourself would desensitise people even more than social media already does, to death and illness. You would become numb to the feeling of sadness, fear in relation to injury or dying as you would view it as ‘It’s okay we will just clone you!’. Despite the scientific facts of the cons of cloning, does it not terrify you that somebody could copy you? The concept of staring at yourself in person, being able to communicate with ‘you’ is quite scary. Let alone the chance that with advancement in cloning could possibly lead to one day them collectively deciding they have had enough and believe they need to ‘wipe out’ the ‘weaker’ population. Imagine waking up to yourself trying to murder you. Clones are all fun and games until they pose a real threat to human life, and then what do we do? Kill them? Start a war due to our own stupidity? How can you look yourself in the face and kill you? Although this sounds like a very Hollywood cliché movie created and directed by Ryan Murphy, the notion that this could all be possible, really makes me sit back and worry for the advancement in science. To answer my question, the cost would be the original human existence.

What would you do? Do you want cloning to be legalised? Does all this appeal to you? Does the reward trump the risk? Although human cloning is not happening right now, do you think it will become a real possibility? Would you clone yourself? The possibilities are limitless. Before you create your own opinions and ideas on the topic, watch the 2019 movie ‘US’. Then you might understand what really could happen to the world.