Can we make our clones?

Science has come a long way in the last century when it comes to cloning a menagerie of animals, cloning humans and other primates has actually proven to be incredibly difficult. While we might not be on the brink of cloning entire human beings, we’re already capable of cloning human cells.

It is theoretically quite simple too, and if it were ever legal, any initial struggles applying the current techniques to humans could be overcomed in reasonable time maybe within 5 years, since humans need 9 months to develop, so that'll slow things down. The technology for the initial phases of cloning will continue to be improved in the next decade, since it has legally acceptable applications for therapies in regenerative medicine.

The technology we do have now is incredibly inefficient, and that while we'd be able to (inefficiently) make genetic human clones, these clones would likely never be identical to their original. This is because you could take the nucleus and oocyte from the same individual, so that all nuclear (main DNA) and cytoplasmic (mitochondrial DNA) genetic material are identical, but it'd be incredibly challenging to recreate the exact same environment the original embryo faced in utero. Then there are all experiences after birth that will shape the clone's brain differently.

In sum, we likely have the technology to create genetic clones of humans, but not the technology to do it efficiently or to create exact replicas of humans.

We know the hypothetical process, but have never actually put it to use. Internationally there are bans on human cloning, so developing the theory into a real process has never been attempted. In fact, it hasn't even been done with primates.

There are very real bio ethical concerns with human cloning. So while we know that the basic methods to clone any mammal, can be adapted, and then refined until the process works consistently, no set of researchers has made the effort. Doing so would kill your career. And might result in jail time, depending on where you live.

So we only know the hypothetical basics. But each mammal successfully cloned has needed its own modifications to that process, based on unique properties.

So, as a complete and working process, we actually don't know how to clone any primate, including humans.

So, what do you think? If you ever get a chance to make a clone of yourself, would you do it?