So, before you hate me or call out all the horrible ethical consequences (donor dogs, surrogate dogs, a genetic replica not being the same as my amazing dog, nature vs. nurture) I 100% know and agree. It’s horrible and I hate that it feels like the only way to save my own life.

My dog came into my life 6 years ago after I survived sexual assault and battery from an ex-boyfriend. In an almost absurd escalation, when I was in the hospital post attack, the examiner found serious structural irregularities in my reproductive organs, and an MRI revealed a series of congenital defects to vital organs that would make having children near impossible and shorten my lifespan to the point my parents will likely outlive me. 

I was completely devastated feeling like my whole life had just been ripped out from under me and no longer saw the point in being alive. I’m not a religious person, but by some miracle, a neighbor knocked on my door and said she’d found a puppy in a box by the grocery store dumpster and asked if I would take him. He was barely 8 weeks old and as soon as I held him in his flea infested pink baby blanket, I knew I had a reason to keep going. 

That was 6 years ago and even though I still have low points, having him has given me a reason to push through. As he gets older though, I cry just thinking of losing him. I’ve fostered 18 dogs in the past 6 years and even rescued another puppy too, but my boy is more like my baby than a pet and no other dog could fill that void. I know I’ll never have biological children, and it seems cruel even to adopt when I don’t have a long term romantic partner and I know my own health will rapidly deteriorate and likely be terminal in 25 years. 

So, given all this, is there any way I can justify to myself cloning my baby boy, knowing that I will never replace him, but having a piece of him that lives on? The prospect of living without him is unbearable