See some vocabulary to do with medical discoveries.

Read about the case of Dolly the Sheep and check your understanding.

Do you remember Dolly the Sheep? For a moment in February 1997 when Dolly was born, the world held its breath.  Why was that?  Perhaps in the future the incident will be remembered as nothing more than the unremarkable birth of one more sheep (hundreds of thousands are born each spring, after all).  Perhaps, however, it will be remembered as the day of an important a step forward in science as the Wright Brother’s first flight, Bell’s first telephone call, or Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon.  There is, of course, also a third possibility, that it will be remembered as one of science’s terrible mistakes.

So what was so special about a sheep?  And why did the birth of this sheep upset so many people?  Dolly, of course, was no ordinary sheep.  Dolly was a clone.

So what does this mean practically?  For some, it is nothing more than the refinement of a technique that scientists that have been using for a long time in order to assist artificial reproduction.  For others, it is a valuable new technique that will lead to an increased understanding of how our bodies and life itself works, making possible enormous breakthroughs in medicine, for example.  For others still, it is a dangerous step in mankind playing at being god without knowing what the consequences are.

Taking the DNA of one organism and copying it to grow another is rather like burning a copy of a CD.  As long as you don’t work for a major record company, there is nothing particularly threatening or frightening about that - so what is it that makes cloning such an ethically problematic field?

Opponents come from one of two major groups – people with strong religious beliefs, and those with environmental ones.  

Religious opponents to cloning (who come from all religious backgrounds from Christians to Muslims to Jews) basically claim that people should not be intervening in what they see as being the divine creation of life.  

Those who hold strong environmental views on the other hand, claim that some of the private companies who are doing research into cloning want to put patents on specific DNA-codes – effectively privatising” certain forms of life itself.

Defenders of cloning, however, dismiss these views, claiming that cloning will become an invaluable instrument in fighting diseases such as cancer or serious injuries like loss of arms or legs.   It will be possible to re-grow body tissues to replace those that have been removed or lost.

Whatever, it’s worth remembering that Dolly the Sheep had a shorter than average life (she lived until she was 6, instead of the more usual 10 or 11) and it seems unlikely that the day she died will be remembered by medical science.