Faulty Logic

Recently, scientists cloned the first extinct animal. Those who support pet cloning argue that this breakthrough affirms the logic that to clone your pet is ethical and supports the scientific community. This is faulty logic. Cloning animals that have become extinct will likely result in those animals quickly becoming extinct again. In addition, the process of cloning extinct animals is different from that of pet cloning, as pets are cloned from live animals, so it benefits little from research done on pet cloning. Cloning extinct animals is unlikely to be highly successful, and pet cloning is unlikely to be very helpful to that cause. Therefore, the development of the ability to clone extinct animals does not make pet cloning ethical.

When a species of animal becomes extinct, it is often because the habitat of that species has radically changed or become nonexistent. When that is the case, there is little chance that cloning animals to bring the species back will result in a successful reintroduction. A better alternative is to protect the species that still exist on earth by maintaining their habitats. If altered habitat is not enough to kill off the reintroduced species, the reduced gene pool that comes of cloning animals will reduce chances of survival of the species. Just as incest causes genetic defects in humans, it does in animals. Also, with fewer genetic variations, the species has less chance of adapting to the environment.

Even if cloning were a viable method of resurrecting extinct species, it would not justify pet cloning. Companies that offer to clone your pet perform thousands of experiments on live animals, while scientists that attempt to clone extinct animals do not have the means to do this. Additionally, pet cloning companies impregnate animals of the same species as the clone. Using a related species is a more complicated science. Clearly, the goals and processes of pet cloning companies and scientists who attempt to clone extinct animals are very different. To attempt to justify a desire to clone your pet by citing advances made in noncommercial cloning sciences is illogical.