{"id":1860,"date":"2013-09-03T18:20:51","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T18:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1860"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:00","slug":"are-cloned-horses-ready-for-primetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/are-cloned-horses-ready-for-primetime\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Cloned Horses Ready for Primetime?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, September 3, 2013, by Daniel Choo
\nWith every scientific breakthrough, there comes the potential for misappropriate use\u2014nuclear fission and the atomic bomb<\/a>; Google Earth and the Mumbai terrorist attacks<\/a>; the Internet and the increased incidences of cyberbullying and cyberstalking<\/a>.\u00a0 To discourage such misuse, laws relating to such technological innovations need to be tightly regulated, taking into consideration not only the legal implications but also the long-term moral effects of such laws on society as a whole.\u00a0 Unfortunately, with its recent decision in Abraham v. Am. Quarter Horse Ass’n<\/i><\/a>, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas did no such thing and instead, helped pave way for future abuse of genetic engineering and cloning technology.<\/p>\n

“[C]loned embryos are often deformed or grossly over-sized, and so should not be created for what . . . is [essentially] a leisure activity.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Abraham<\/i>, two Texas horse breeders sued American Quarter Horse Association (“AQHA”), one of the most preeminent Quarter Horse breed registries in the country.\u00a0 Participation in many of the more lucrative competitions around the world requires AQHA registration.\u00a0 Without such registration, a horse essentially has minimal economic value.\u00a0 Accordingly, the Texas breeders alleged that by refusing to include clones of registered horses in its registry, AQHA deterred competition and violated federal anti-monopoly laws.\u00a0 AQHA responded that, if anything, its decision to exclude had anti-monopolistic effects; such cloned horses were not prevented from joining competing registries.\u00a0 And, more importantly, because its “members voluntarily join and come together for their love, shared interest in and enjoyment of the American Quarter Horse,” AQHA had the right to create rules that support the views of its members.\u00a0 U.S. District Court Judge Mary Lou Robinson, however, disagreed and held that AQHA must accept clones into its breed registry.
\nRegardless of whether AQHA’s decision indeed constituted a violation of anti-monopoly laws, the district court botched an opportune moment to help deter the misappropriate use of scientific innovations.\u00a0 By requiring AQHA to accept cloned horses, the court, in essence, stamped its seal of approval on the use of cloning technology for non-medical or “recreational” purposes.\u00a0 Proponents of the ruling argue that cloning is necessary to “give horses who are unable to reproduce naturally a chance to pass on their genes<\/a>.”\u00a0 In addition, cloned horses have long been approved in other equine sports competitions (e.g. showjumping, polo, and carriage horse racing<\/a>) without any significant negative consequences.
\nSuch explanations, however, fail to adequately justify the need for cloning technology in breeding horses for competition.\u00a0 Breeders of past Kentucky Derby winners like War Admiral and Secretariat<\/a> found much success without having to rely on genetic engineering.\u00a0 But now that the technology is available, what is to prevent someone from creating multiple clones of these past Kentucky Derby winners for purely financial gain?\u00a0 Of course, the making of a winner takes more than just good genes, but those with the financial resources to create such clones will certainly have some degree of advantage over the field.\u00a0 Moreover, the process involved in cloning of animals is far from being completely safe<\/a>.\u00a0 Great majority of cloning attempts are unsuccessful and require extensive veterinarian intervention.\u00a0 Even when health clones are produced, many develop unexpected health issues.\u00a0 Moreover, “cloned embryos are often deformed or grossly over-sized, and so should not be created for what . . . is [essentially] a leisure activity<\/a>.”
\nWith such uncertainty still looming in the field of animal cloning, it makes little sense to allow individuals to breed horses through genetic engineering.\u00a0 While breeding horses may currently seem benign, such continued misuse of technological innovations will only lead to disastrous consequences.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, September 3, 2013, by Daniel Choo With every scientific breakthrough, there comes the potential for misappropriate use\u2014nuclear fission and the atomic bomb; Google Earth and the Mumbai terrorist attacks; the Internet and the increased incidences of cyberbullying and cyberstalking.\u00a0 To discourage such misuse, laws relating to such technological innovations need to be tightly regulated, …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7591,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions\/7591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}