human cloning is wrong what kind of essay

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IELTS Human Cloning Essay

This is a model answer for a  human cloning  essay.

If you look at the task, the wording is slightly different from the common  'do you agree or disagree'  essay.

However, it is essentially asking the same thing.

As people live longer and longer, the idea of cloning human beings in order to provide spare parts is becoming a reality. The idea horrifies most people, yet it is no longer mere science fiction.

To what extent do you agree with such a procedure?

Have you any reservations?

Understanding the Question and Task

You are asked if you agree with human cloning to use their body parts (in other words, what are the benefits), and what reservations (concerns) you have (in other words, what are the disadvantages).

So the best way to answer this human cloning essay is probably to look at both sides of the issue as has been done in the model answer.

As always, you must read the question carefully to make sure you answer it fully and do not go off topic.

You are specifically being asked to discuss the issue of creating human clones to then use their body parts. If you write about other issues to do with human cloning, you may go off topic.

Model Human Cloning Essay

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own experience or knowledge.

Write at least 250 words.

Model Answer for Human Cloning Essay

The cloning of animals has been occurring for a number of years now, and this has now opened up the possibility of cloning humans too. Although there are clear benefits to humankind of cloning to provide spare body parts, I believe it raises a number of worrying ethical issues.

Due to breakthroughs in medical science and improved diets, people are living much longer than in the past. This, though, has brought with it problems. As people age, their organs can fail so they need replacing. If humans were cloned, their organs could then be used to replace those of sick people. It is currently the case that there are often not enough organ donors around to fulfil this need, so cloning humans would overcome the issue as there would then be a ready supply.

However, for good reasons, many people view this as a worrying development. Firstly, there are religious arguments against it. It would involve creating other human beings and then eventually killing them in order to use their organs, which it could be argued is murder. This is obviously a sin according to religious texts. Also, dilemmas would arise over what rights these people have, as surely they would be humans just like the rest of us. Furthermore, if we have the ability to clone humans, it has to be questioned where this cloning will end. Is it then acceptable for people to start cloning relatives or family members who have died?

To conclude, I do not agree with this procedure due to the ethical issues and dilemmas it would create. Cloning animals has been a positive development, but this is where it should end.

(276 words)

The essay is well-organized, with a clear introducion which introduces the topic:

• The cloning of animals has been occurring for a number of years now, and this has now opened up the possibility of cloning humans too.

And it has a thesis statement that makes it clear exactly how the human cloning essay will be structured and what the candidate's opinion is:

• Although there are clear benefits to humankind of cloning to provide spare body parts, I believe it raises a number of worrying ethical issues.

The first body paragraph discusses the advantages of cloning humans, and then the second body paragraph looks at the problems associated with this. The change of direction to look at the other side is clearly marked with a transition word ("however") and a topic sentence:

• However, for good reasons, many people view this as a worrying development.

Other transition words are used effectively to guide the reader through the ideas in the human cloning essay: Firstly,.. Also,... Furthermore,...

The candidate demonstrates that they can use a mix of complex structures. For example:

• Due to breakthroughs in medical science and improved diets, people are living much longer than in the past.
• It would involve creating another human and then eventually killing it in order to use its organs, which it could be argued is murder.
• ...if we have the ability to clone humans, it has to be questioned where this cloning will end.

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Ethical Debate on Human Cloning Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Unethical issues about cloning, ethical issues, works cited.

Cloning refers to the scientific multiplication and production of new cells to reproduce individuals that resemble their natural counterparts (Craig 3). It involves the duplication and modification of reproductive genes from different individuals to produce individuals that resemble their parents. This essay explores the issues raised by opponents and proponents of this scientific discovery.

Every person deserves the right and freedom to be respected and valued as a human being. Nobody is supposed to discriminate against others because of their origin since all people are equal they were all born of a father and mother and went through the same process before they came to this world (Brown 14). However, cloning is a disrespectful scientific innovation that ignores the natural ways of raising families. In addition, it discredits the process of preproduction that involves having sexual affairs, conception, pregnancy and delivery. Cloned individuals will not have the dignity given to human beings born through natural means.

Secondly, this activity is very inhumane since it involves the destruction of fertile human cells. Human beings are not supposed to be used as specimens for laboratory activities. However, since this experiment cannot be used using other animals; as a result, scientists must look for cells from human beings. This process disrespects human value since it depicts people as specimens (Craig 7). A previous experiment conducted to clone a sheep led to the destruction of more than 270 cells. The result led to only one sheep conceiving even though there were more than ten sheep. This reveals how this process will lead to damages and unnecessary expenses.

Thirdly, natural selection places individuals at extreme ends regarding survival in the future. Natural reproduction ensures individuals produced can withstand all-natural challenges that pose serious risks to their existence (Brown 33). The cloning of Dolly did not give any future expectations and happenings that may interfere with its life. Therefore, this process is more of guesswork than a confident undertaking.

Lastly, this process transgresses societal expectations and exposes people to mechanical activities. There is no way they can rely on scientific innovations to bring up children when they have the same ability (Macintosh 121). Religious teachings regard their supreme being to be in charge of creation. When people create life this is perceived to be challenging nature; therefore, this is an antisocial activity that must be stopped.

Proponents of cloning suggest that this activity enables help, sick people, to get remedies for their complications (Mitchell 56). Cell division and multiplication has enabled doctors to perform successful organ transplants. Therefore, many lives have been saved courtesy of cloning.

Secondly, they argue that this activity will produce individuals of high quality that will be useful in various industrial activities. They will offer a cheap and reliable supply of labor (Kass 76). These proponents insist that cloning will lead to the production of individuals that are resistant to diseases, have a long lifespan and can adjust to various environmental challenges.

Lastly, they are persuaded that successful human cloning procedures will be applied in other fields like agriculture to ensure they produce quality individuals. This practice will be applied in other fields that lack quality individuals to perform various tasks.

Human beings deserve to live a quality life and scientific innovations are providing various ways of improving society to meet human needs. However, cloning is not an alternative to the challenges facing human beings. People are can reproduce without this scientific intervention that is coupled with serious challenges. Therefore, cloning is an unethical issue and it should be banned to avoid exposing human beings to the risks mentioned above.

Brown, Thomas. Gene Cloning and DNA Analysis: An Introduction. New York: Willey-Blackwell, 2010. Print.

Craig, Robin. Cloning Around: The Ethics of Human Cloning and Stem Cell Research. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012. Print.

Kass, Leon. Human Cloning and Human Dignity: The Report of the President’s Council on Bioethics. New York: PublicAffairs, 2010. Print.

Macintosh, Kerry. Human Cloning: Four Fallacies and their Legal Consequences. Cambridge Bioethics and Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print.

Mitchell, Winnie. Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2022, April 9). Ethical Debate on Human Cloning. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethical-debate-on-human-cloning/

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Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership

Op-ed: The dangers of cloning

May 11, 2020 by Berkeley Master of Engineering

Satomi Angelika Murayama, MEng ’20 (ME)

“Sometime, somewhere, someone will generate a cloned human being.”  — Ronald Green for Scientific American, 1999

Background on cloning

The low success rate of cloning and its medical complications

A mismatch of the public’s expectations with reality.

“We need to realize that cloning would produce a baby, not an adult.”

The ethical and moral concerns that surround cloning humans

“Cloning humans could lead to serious violations of human rights as well as human dignity, and it is up to authorities, laws and institutions to make sure to protect cloned individuals from being exploited.”

Concluding remarks

About the author:.

• “Eugenics — HISTORY.” October 28, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2019.
• Green, Ronald M. “I, Clone — Scientific American.” September 3, 1999. Accessed November 1, 2019.
• Savulescu, Julian. 1999. “Should we clone human beings? Cloning as a source of tissue for transplantation”. Journal of Medical Ethics. 25:87–95.
• “Therapeutic Cloning | Definition of Therapeutic Cloning at Dictionary.Com.” n.d. Accessed November 4, 2019.
• Weintraub, Karen. “20 Years after Dolly the Sheep Led the Way — Where Is Cloning Now? -Scientific American.” July 5, 2016. Accessed November 1, 2019.
• Weintraub, Karen. “Cloning’s Long Legacy — And Why It’ll Never Be Used on Humans|DiscoverMagazine.Com.” April 29, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2019.
• Weldon, Dave. “Why Human Cloning Must Be Banned Now | The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity.” March 31, 2002. Accessed November 1, 2019.
• “What Is the Difference between Reproductive and Therapeutic Cloning? | NYSTEM.” n.d. Accessed November 1, 2019.

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Should Human Cloning Be Allowed? No, It’s a Moral Monstrosity

Published December 5, 2001

The Wallstreet Journal

By Eric Cohen

Dr. Michael West, the lead scientist on the team that recently cloned the first human embryos, believes his mission in life is “to end suffering and death.” “For the sake of medicine,” he informs us, “we need to set our fears aside.” For the sake of health, in other words, we need to overcome our moral inhibitions against cloning and eugenics.

The human cloning announcement was not a shock. We have been “progressing” down this road for years, while averting our gaze from the destination. Now we have cloned human embryos. That means that women’s eggs were procured, their genetic material removed, the DNA from someone else inserted, and the resulting cloned embryos manufactured as genetic replicas of an existing person. In Dr. West’s experiments, the embryos died very quickly. But the hope is that someday these embryos will serve as a source of rejection-free stem cells that can help cure diseases.

For now, this is science fiction, or a rosy form of speculation. No one has ever been treated with “therapeutic cloning” or embryonic stem cells. There have been no human trials. But it is true that this research may work in the future (though the benefits would likely be decades away). In addition, beyond cloning, scientists have larger ambitions, including “tinkering” with DNA before it is placed in an egg, and adding designer genes that would make clones into “super clones,” stem cells into “super stem cells.”

Yet while Dr. West and his colleagues say that they have no interest in creating cloned humans — on the grounds that doing so is not yet safe — they do not seem too frightened by the prospect of laying the groundwork for those who would do just that. “We didn’t feel that the abuse of this technology, its potential abuses, should stop us from doing what we believe is the right thing in medicine,” Dr. West said.

The Senate, it seems, is also not very concerned. Majority Leader Tom Daschle wants to put off until spring a vote on the Human Cloning Prohibition Act, which the House passed by 265-162 in July. And on Monday, the Senate chose not to consider a six-month moratorium on all human cloning. As Sen. Harry Reid has said, a moratorium for “six months or two months or two days would impede science.” And that, he believes, we cannot do.

It is understandable that many senators want to avoid a decision on this controversial issue, and no surprise that those driven by a desire to advance science and to heal the sick at any cost resist a ban. But as the ethicist Paul Ramsey wrote, “The good things that men do can be complete only by the things they refuse to do.” And cloning is one of those things we should refuse to do.

The debate is usually divided into two issues — reproductive cloning (creating cloned human beings) and therapeutic cloning (creating cloned human embryos for research and destruction). For now, there is near-universal consensus that we should shun the first. The idea of mother-daughter twins or genetically-identical “daddy juniors” stirs horror in us. Our moral sense revolts at the prospect, because so many of our cherished principles would be violated: the principle that children should not be designed in advance; that newborns should be truly new, without the burden of a genetic identity already lived; that a society where cloning is easy (requiring a few cells from anywhere in the body) means anyone could be cloned without knowledge or consent; and that replacing lost loved ones with “copies” is an insult to the ones lost, since it denies the uniqueness and sacredness of their existence. For these reasons, Americans agree that human cloning should never happen — not merely because the procedure is not yet “safe,” but because it is wrong.

Many research advocates say that they, too, are against “reproductive cloning.” But to protect their research, they seek to restrict only the implantation of cloned embryos, not the creation of cloned embryos for research. This is untenable: Once we begin stockpiling cloned embryos for research, it will be virtually impossible to control how they are used. We would be creating a class of embryos that, by law, must be destroyed. And the only remedy for wrongfully implanting cloned embryos would be forced abortions, something neither pro-lifers nor reproductive rights advocates would tolerate, nor should.

But the cloning debate is not simply the latest act in the moral divide over abortion. It is the “opening skirmish” — as Leon Kass, the president’s bioethics czar, describes it — in deciding whether we wish to “put human nature itself on the operating table, ready for alteration, enhancement, and wholesale redesign.” Lured by the seductive promise of medical science to “end” suffering and disease, we risk not seeing the dark side of the eugenic project.

Three horrors come to mind: First, the designing of our descendents, whether through cloning or germ-line engineering, is a form of generational despotism. Second, in trying to make human beings live indefinitely, our scientists have begun mixing our genes with those of cows, pigs, and jellyfish. And in trying to stamp out disease by any means necessary, we risk beginning the “compassionate” project of killing off the diseased themselves, something that has already begun with the selective abortion by parents of “undesirable” embryos.

Proponents of the biogenetic revolution will surely say that such warnings are nothing more than superstitions. Naive to the destructive power of man’s inventions, they will say that freedom means leaving scientists to experiment as they see fit. They will say that those who wish to stop the unchecked advance of biotechnology are themselves “genetic fundamentalists,” who see human beings as nothing more than their genetic make-ups. Banning human cloning, one advocate says, “would set a very dangerous precedent of bringing the police powers of the federal government into the laboratories.”

But the fact is that society accepts the need to regulate behavior for moral reasons — from drug use to nuclear weapons research to dumping waste. And those who say that human identity is “more than a person’s genetic make-up” are typically the ones who seek to crack man’s genetic code, so that they might “improve” humans in the image they see fit. In promising biological utopia, they justify breaching fundamental moral boundaries.

C. S. Lewis saw this possibility long ago in “The Abolition of Man.” As he put it, “Each new power won by man is a power over man as well.” In order to stop the dehumanization of man, and the creation of a post-human world of designer babies, man-animal chimeras, and “compassionate killing” of the disabled, we may have to forego some research. We may have to say no to certain experiments before they begin. The ban on human cloning is an ideal opportunity to reassert democratic control over science, and to reconnect technological advance with human dignity and responsibility.

Source Notes Copyright: 2001 The Wall Street Journal

Tim Walz, Education Radical

A Note on Walz and ‘Neighborly Socialism’

Donald Trump must do better among white voters if he hopes to win in November

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Human Cloning: Unmasking the Controversy

by Francisco Galdos

Suppose you have a year-old laptop that has been working well for you. You begin to notice one day that the computer freezes more frequently, and you continue to have problems. After taking your computer to the engineers, the engineers discover that a few of the small components of the motherboard are faulty, so they decide to replace it. Sounds simple doesn’t it? If we compare the act of replacing a computer part with the feat of replacing a faulty organ in our bodies, we can greatly appreciate the idea of interchangeable parts. Imagine, for example, that someone is born with a defective heart and has had so many surgeries that all that is left is a stiff and scarred heart. If we equate the body to a laptop we could say, “why not replace the organ with a new one?” Why not produce healthy clones of our organs so that we can just replace them when they are defective?

Although a simple idea, scientists and physicians have struggled for more than 50 years to understand how we can manipulate our cells in order to replace or regenerate our bodies. As scientists continue to advance techniques in cloning technologies, we have seen an increase in the number of ethical debates on the future of cloning. Cloning, albeit a straightforward solution to generating new organs, has become taboo in itself, causing the path to duplication to become less linear and more complicated for the scientist. If we would like to see medicine reach an era of curative intervention rather than palliative treatment, it becomes necessary more than ever to fully understand the fundamental scientific questions that cloning has sought to answer. As we look into the history and science of cloning, we find that it reveals a remarkable flexibility in our biology that could allow us to repair many of the problems that often lead to death.

Cloning: A Background

To find the origins of cloning, we need to go back to the 1950s. Embryologists had long been grappling with understanding how the vast diversity of cells in the body could be derived from a single fertilized egg cell. Scientists were puzzled by the concept of cellular differentiation , the ability of a fertilized egg cell to become a unique cell type within the body [1]. Up to this point in history, all that scientists knew was that within the nucleus of a cell there was genetic information, and this nucleus was bathed within the surrounding fluid in the cell, known as the cytoplasm. In order to investigate cellular differentiation, two scientists, Robert Briggs and Thomas King, sought to answer whether there was some type of irreversible change that occurred in the nucleus of the cell, which caused cells early in development to differentiate into the vast array of specialized cells in our tissues and bodies. They pioneered a laboratory technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)[1].  SCNT involved taking the nucleus of a frog cell that they deemed to be further along in differentiation, and transferring the nucleus into a frog egg cell that had had its nucleus removed. Briggs and King hypothesized that a differentiated cell nucleus that has undergone irreversible genetic changes should have a decreased potential to develop into other cell types, since it would be lacking the genetic information needed to differentiate into all the cells of the body of an animal. Many scientists shared this hypothesis, as well as the idea that some factors within the cytoplasm cause irreversible changes to the genetic material in the nuclei of cells. In 1962, however, a graduate student by the name of John Gurdon conducted SCNT experiments in which he took differentiated frog intestinal cells and transferred their nuclei into enucleated egg cells. Gurdon modified his experimental procedure to conduct serial nuclear transplantations in which he took the already transplanted nuclei, and transplanted them again. In 1966, Gurdon demonstrated that he could effectively obtain adult frog clones with this method [2]. He proposed that if a differentiated cell nucleus could be used to form all the tissues of an entire animal, then the nucleus of a differentiated cell must not have undergone irreversible changes during cellular differentiation [2].

Gurdon’s frog experiment represents the first time in history that anyone had effectively cloned an animal, and also the first time that anyone had experimentally shown that during differentiation, cells do not undergo irreversible genetic changes. In a time when the secrets of molecular genetics were still being experimentally discovered, Gurdon proposed that it was through some type of mechanism that genes were turned on and off rather than lost as the embryo began to differentiate [2]. The idea that you could take a fully mature cell and reprogram it to become a cell capable of becoming any cell in the body led to the coining of the term pluripotency, which is the idea that a cell can become any cell in the body. His idea that all cells in the body maintain the same genome and have the potential to be reprogrammed into pluripotent cells inspired efforts to discover new ways to reprogram cells. To start, scientists began by studying the pluripotent cells—the embryonic stem cells. In 1998 James Thompson derived the first human embryonic stem cells [3]. By deriving these cells, scientists such as Thompson were interested in discovering the various genetic factors responsible for maintaining the pluripotent state. Theoretically, if pluripotent stem cells, i.e. embryonic stem cells, could be derived from a patient’s cells, such as a skin cell, scientists and physicians could use the pluripotent cells to make replacement tissues that are derived from the patient’s own cells.

In 1996, Ian Wilmut effectively derived the first embryonic stem cells using SCNT in a mammal and effectively cloned the first mammal—Dolly the sheep [4]. This lead to widespread fear and resistance that SCNT could be used to clone human beings, and that embryonic stem cells destroyed human life in the process of their derivation. Such fears lead to an 8 year national ban on the use of federal funds for the creation of new embryonic stem cell lines during the Bush administration, which caused massive funding problems for the field of regenerative medicine [5]. Because human embryonic stem cells are both expensive to derive, and ethically controversial to use, they became incredibly inefficient to use for therapeutic purposes. Moreover, as a clinical application, reprogramming was in its infancy since at the time, derivation of human pluripotent stem cells through SCNT had not been done. It was not until 2006 that Shinya Yamanaka and Kazutoshi Takahashi demonstrated the derivation of mouse pluripotent stem cells using the over-expression of four transcription factors [6]. This paper revolutionized the field of cellular reprogramming because it provided an effective alternative to deriving cells equivalent to embryonic stem cells. This effectively took the place of SCNT as a reprogramming technology, as it was accepted as a less controversial form of deriving pluripotent stem cells. SCNT was deemed as controversial because it generates embryos whose embryonic stem cells are then harvested to generate pluripotent cells in a dish. Yamanka’s method bypassed the need to generate the embryo and developed pluripotent embryonic-like stem cells directly from a differentiated cell in the body. Indeed, Yamanaka’s induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have been derived from human cells and have been used for a variety of purposes. Despite the shift to Yamanaka’s technology, this year, a group of US researchers in Oregon successfully derived the first human embryonic stem cell lines using SCNT, both reviving the scientific discussion of reprogramming and the controversy over human cloning [7]. Looking back, in more than a half-century of research, reprogramming experiments have demonstrated the remarkable flexibility of our cells to be converted into different cell types that can serve as the basis for regenerative therapies.

 Therapeutic Hope, The Promise of Cloning

As we saw with the engineer replacing a laptop’s motherboard, we can now see how cloning technologies could be used to achieve such “replacements” in our bodies. Cells, it turns out, can be thought about as computers. The DNA of our cells can be thought of as the motherboard of a computer in that DNA essentially controls all the functions of the machine, our cells. The motherboard controls the entire computer’s functions depending on how it is programmed. Similarly, cells also depend upon how the DNA is programmed to express certain genes that carry out a particular function. Knowing this, we can then try to drive stem cells such as pluripotent stem cells to differentiate into a cell type that we are interested in obtaining. Take for example, a heart attack patient. During a heart attack, the heart muscle often dies off, causing irreplaceable damage in the heart that often puts patients on heart transplant lists [8]. Making heart cells from pluripotent stem cells would allow us to regenerate the damaged heart.

            Regenerative technologies do not solely depend upon the generation of pluripotent stem cells. Scientists such as Doug Melton have sought to explore the possibility of bypassing the pluripotent state altogether and directly reprogram one cell type to another. Melton and coworkers showed that a type of cell known as an exocrine cell, located in the pancreas, could be directly reprogrammed into an insulin producing ß-cell by expressing transcription factors that are only present in ß-cells. If Melton’s group can one day make fully mature and functional ß-cells, these cells could effectively be engineered in such a way that they can be transplanted into the pancreas of a patient with type 1 diabetes, which could in theory cure the patient’s diabetes.

            The fundamental promise of cloning is that scientists can take a person’s own cells and manipulate the biology of these cells to regenerate injured or diseased tissues. Using Yamanaka’s induced pluripotent cell (iPS) technology, it is even possible to take cells that may have genetic defects, such as defective genes, and genetically engineer the iPS cells derived from a patient such that the defective gene is replaced with the correct gene [8]. For example, consider a patient with muscular dystrophy who has a mutation in the gene called dystrophin. Using iPS technology, we could theoretically take skin cells, make iPS cells, replace the defective dystrophin gene with the correct gene, and make muscle tissue that could be transplanted into the patient to effectively cure his muscular dystrophy [9]. In addition to fixing genetic defects, scientists and physicians such as Harald Ott at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute are pioneering new technologies in what is known as whole-organ assembly [10]. The idea of whole-organ assembly consists of using iPS cells to seed tissue scaffolds that can be assembled to create on-demand replacement organs for patients [10]. Such technology could one day provide patients with fully functional replacement organs made from their own cells.  

Breaking Down the Controversy

Despite the incredible promise of these technologies, they continue to find opposition from groups that argue that the use of embryonic stem cells and cloning of human cells into embryonic stem cells devalue human life, and could potentially give rise to the cloning of human beings [11]. The controversy is fueled by questions of right to life and individual determinism [12]. The fact that embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have the potential to give rise to all the cells in the body, and theoretically give rise to human beings, creates vast opposition based on fears that human lives are essentially being killed through the use or creation of these cells [14].

When John Gurdon cloned the first animal, the scientific question he sought to answer was whether cells have some irreversible change in their nuclei as they differentiate. Today, scientists are taking this question a step further towards understanding the molecular and cellular biology of how pluripotent cells undergo cellular differentiation. The Oregon study, which developed SCNT reprogramming of human cells, will serve as a vital study for modifying iPS technologies to make reprogramming more effective, and to remove the inefficiencies of genetic reprogramming that we often see with iPS technologies compared to SCNT [7].

Induced pluripotent stem cells were hailed as ethically acceptable because they bypass the need to use human eggs and human embryos. Although the goal of iPSCs is to replace embryonic stem cells as a away to avoid using human embryos, iPSCs contain many genetic differences that currently make them unsuitable to use for therapeutic purposes [8]. The golden standard for deriving pluripotent cells is in fact an embryonic stem cell derived from an embryo that has been made from the fertilization of an egg. If we are to work out the kinks in the iPS system, the use of embryonic stem cells will be key for making iPSCs suitable for clinical use.  Thus, if the controversy arises due to the creation of embryonic stem cells, the following question arises: if we are to perfect iPS technology to effectively derive pluripotent cells that are equivalent to ES cells, should iPS cells be banned as well since our golden standard of comparison must be derived from human blastocysts that have the potential to become a human individual?

            If a human life is defined from the moment that a cell has the potential to become a human being (i.e. conception), we find ourselves in an ethical conundrum when thinking about our genome as a whole. We know that all differentiated cells are equivalent in their genomes’ potential to become any cell in our bodies, and to also generate an entirely new adult, as we saw with Gurdon’s frogs and Wilmut’s sheep. Thus, does this indicate that all cells in the body have the potential to form a life and therefore should be considered as such? The beauty of John Gurdon’s, Ian Wilmut’s, the Oregon Group’s, and Yamanaka’s experiments are not that they derived a Brave New World type of technology to institute human cloning, but rather they reveal the inherent flexibility of our biology. If we define life from the moment we make a cell that has the potential to produce an entire individual, then we potentially must begin to categorize everything in our bodies by their own inherent potential to form an individual. It becomes incredibly difficult to make these categorizations. Unfortunately, the biology of our cells cannot be so clearly confined with these strict definitions. We are constantly learning that cells are dynamic systems. One way we could think about the flexibility of our cells is that engineering them for medicine capitalizes on this inherent biological flexibility. We should also keep in mind that when developing an ethical position, we should remember both the incredible life saving potential of these cloning technologies, as well as the historical scientific questions that they have answered.

Towards the Future 

Cloning technologies have the potential to drive medicine into an era of regeneration. If we define human life as beginning when a cell has the potential to become a full human being, then we may run into difficulties when we consider that essentially any cell in our bodies has the potential to become a full human being. Many ethical arguments against cloning technologies and embryonic stem cell research argue that doing such research inherently destroys human life. We cannot dismiss these arguments, as they propose a valid question, that is—how do we define a human life? Ideally, for the benefit of both scientists and society, we would set ethical boundaries that would allow cloning technologies to benefit humanity in the best possible way.

Acknowledgements:

I’d like to thank my editor Jennifer Guidera for all of her help and feedback during the writing process.

 1.         Briggs, R. and T. King, Transplantation of Living Nuclei From Blastula Cells into Enucleated Frogs’ Eggs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1952. 38 (5): p. 455-463.

2.         Gurdon, J. and V. Uehlinger, “Fertile” intestine nuclei. Nature, 1966. 210 (5042): p. 1240-1241.

3.         Thomson, J., et al., Embryonic stem cell lines derived from human blastocysts. Science (New York, N.Y.), 1998. 282 (5391): p. 1145-1147.

4.         Campbell, K., et al., Sheep cloned by nuclear transfer from a cultured cell line. Nature, 1996. 380 (6569): p. 64-66.

5.         Stolberg, S.G., Bush Vetoes Measure on Stem Cell Research , in The New York Times . 2007. p. A21.

6.         Takahashi, K. and S. Yamanaka, Induction of pluripotent stem cells from mouse embryonic and adult fibroblast cultures by defined factors. Cell, 2006. 126 (4): p. 663-676.

7.         Tachibana, M., et al., Human embryonic stem cells derived by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Cell, 2013. 153 (6): p. 1228-1238.

8.         Takahashi, K. and S. Yamanaka, Induced pluripotent stem cells in medicine and biology. Development (Cambridge, England), 2013. 140 (12): p. 2457-2461.

9.         O’Connor, T. and R. Crystal, Genetic medicines: treatment strategies for hereditary disorders. Nature reviews. Genetics, 2006. 7 (4): p. 261-276.

10.       Soto-Gutierrez, A., et al., Perspectives on whole-organ assembly: moving toward transplantation on demand. The Journal of clinical investigation, 2012. 122 (11): p. 3817-3823.

11.       Pollack, A., Cloning Is Used to Create Embryonic Stem Cells , in The New York Times . 2013.

12.       Franklin, S., Stem Cells R US: Emergent Life Forms and the Global Biological , in Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems . 2005, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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The Ethics of Human Cloning

The American Enterprise , March 1, 1999.

Social critics James Q. Wilson and Leon Kass debate the social, psychological and ethical ramifications of human cloning. Wilson supports limited cloning to two-parent heterosexual families and believes the source of the egg should be restricted to race, ethnicity or sex, but parents should not deliberately try to create designer babies. Kass responds the requirement of a two parent family has not been realized in in-vitro fertilization regulations or even for adoption. Moreover he contends that cloning is the twin not the offspring of its source and that cloned child will more often be scrutinized in relation to the older child. A society that treats cloning as acceptable rationalizes fabrication as procreation.

In a new book from AEI Press, two prominent social critics clash over a controversial technology that is likely to be tried with humans in the near future. Following is an edited excerpt from the debate between James Q. Wilson and Leon Kass. Wilson, emeritus professor at UCLA, is chairman of the American Enterprise Institute’s Board of Academic Advisers. Kass, who holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. in biochemistry, is a Brady Fellow at AEI. The book-length exchange between these two men is available free from TAE as part of a special promotion.

JAMES Q. WILSON

“Family structure, not the method of reproduction, is what matters.”

LIKE MOST PEOPLE, I instinctively recoil from the idea of cloning human beings. But we ought to pause and identify what in the process is so distressing. My preliminary view is that the central problem is not creating an identical twin but creating it without parents. Children born of a woman–however the conception is produced–will in the great majority of cases enjoy that special irrational affection that has been vital to human upbringings for millennia. If she is married to a man and they, like the great majority of married couples, invest energy, love, and commitment in the child, the child is likely to do well.

My argument is that the structure of the family a child is born into is more important than the sexual process by which the child is produced. If Leon Kass and other opponents of cloning think that sexuality is more important than families, they should object to any form of assisted reproduction that does not involve parental coition. Many such forms now exist. Children are adopted by parents who did not give them birth. Artificial insemination produces children without sexual congress. Some forms of such insemination rely on sperm produced by a man other than the woman’s husband, while other forms involve the artificial insemination of a surrogate mother who will relinquish the baby to a married couple. By in vitro fertilization, eggs and sperm can be joined in a Petri dish and then transferred into the woman’s uterus.

I have mixed views about assisted reproduction. Some forms I endorse, others I worry about, still others I oppose. The two principles on which my views rest concern, first, the special relationship between infant and mother that is the product of childbirth, however conception was arranged, and second, the great advantage to children that comes from growing up in an intact, two-parent family.

Assisted reproduction, whether by artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization, is now relatively common. In none of those cases is the child the result of marital sex. And in some cases the child isnot genetically related to at least one parent. I am aware of no study that shows in vitro fertilization to have harmed the children’s mental or psychological status or their relationships with parents. A study in England compared children conceived by in vitro fertilization, or by artificial insemination with sperm from an unknown donor, with children who were sexually conceived and grew up in either birth oradoptive families. By every measure of parenting, the children who were the product of either an artificial fertilization or inseminationby a donor did better than children who were naturally conceived. The better parenting should not be surprising. Those parents had been struggling to have children; when a new technology made it possible, they were delighted, and that delight motivated them to be especially supportive of their offspring.

Some observers are opposed to all of these arrangements, no matterwhat their effect on children. Paul Ramsey argued in 1970 that for any third party–say, an egg or sperm donor–to be involved violates the marriage covenant. That is also the view of the Roman Catholic Church. My view is different: If the child is born of a woman who is part of a two-parent family, and both parents work hard to raise him or her properly, we poor mortals have done all that man and God might expect of us.

Matters become more complex when a surrogate mother is involved. There, a woman is inseminated by a man so that she may bear a child tobe given to another couple. That process uses a woman’s body from the start for purposes against which her own instincts, as well as our own moral judgments, rebel.

The case of Baby M in New Jersey began with a child born to Mary Beth Whitehead. She had entered into a contractual agreement with William and Elizabeth Stern to deliver the child to them. Mrs. Whitehead had become pregnant through artificial fertilization by Mr. Stern’s sperm. After the baby’s birth, Mrs. Whitehead refused to surrender it;the Sterns sued. The judge decided that the contract should be honored and the baby should go to the Sterns. On appeal, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided unanimously that the contract was invalid but gave the baby to Mr. Stern and allowed Mrs. Whitehead visiting rights.

The contract, according to the court, was void because it illegally used money to procure a child. More importantly, because no woman can truly give informed consent to relinquishing an infant she has notyet borne and seen, Mrs. Whitehead had not entered into a valid contract. At that time, and so far as I know even today, in every state but Wyoming no woman can agree to allowing her child to be adopted unless that agreement is ratified after birth.

Why, then, did the court give the child to Mr. Stern? The court did not like Mrs. Whitehead. She was poor, ill-educated, moved frequently, received public assistance, and was married to an alcohol abuser.To me, Mrs. Whitehead’s condition was largely irrelevant. The central fact was that she was the baby’s mother. The overwhelming body of biological and anthropological evidence supports the view that women become deeply attached to their children. The mother-child bond is oneof the most powerful in nature and is essential to the existence, tosay nothing of the health, of human society.

The child belonged to its mother, period. That does not mean that all forms of surrogate mothering are wrong, but it at least means that the buyer of the surrogate’s services is completely at risk. Given that risk, surrogate motherhood will never become popular, but it will occur in some cases.

I favor limiting cloning to intact, heterosexual families and placing sharp restrictions on the source of the eggs. We do not want families planning to have a movie star, basketball player, or high-energy physicist as an offspring. But I confess I am not clear as to how those limits might be drawn, and if no one can solve that puzzle, I would join Kass in banning cloning. Perhaps the best solution is a kind of screened lottery akin to what doctors performing in vitro fertilization now do with donated sperm. One can match his race or ethnicity and even select a sex, but beyond that he takes his chances.

I am persuaded that if only married couples can clone, and if we sharply limit the sources of the embryo they can implant in the woman,cloning will be quite rare. Sex is more fun than cloning, and artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization preserve the element of genetic chance that most people, I think, favor. Dr. Kass is right to stress the mystery and uncertainty of sexual union. That is why hardly any woman with a fertile husband who could obtain sperm from a donor bank will do so. Procreation is a delight.

“Cloning turns procreation into manufacture.”

WILSON BEGINS, AS I DO, with repugnance. He acknowledges his own instinctive recoil from the idea of human cloning but does not quite trust his sense of moral disquiet, and sets out to reason it away. That places the burden of proof on those who object to cloning rather than on the proponents. Worse, it requires that the reasons offered be finally acceptable to utilitarians who measure only in terms of tangible harms and benefits but who are generally blind to the deeper meanings of things.

Wilson uses the social acceptance of in vitro fertilization to rebut objections against laboratory conception of human life. But by removing human conception from the human body and by introducing new partners in reproduction (scientists and physicians), in vitro fertilization did more than supply what one or both bodies lack to produce an infant. By putting the origin of human life literally in human hands,it began a process that would lead, in practice, to the increasing technical mastery of human generation and, in thought, to the continuing erosion of respect for the mystery of sexuality and human renewal.The very existence of in vitro fertilization, notwithstanding its real benefits, becomes a justification for the next steps in turning procreation into manufacture. The arrival of cloning, far from gaining legitimacy from the precedent of in vitro fertilization, should instead awaken those who previously saw no difficulty with starting human life in Petri dishes.

Wilson does profess sympathy with those who think cloning is contrary to nature, but nature’s normative pointings have become invisibleto him. Here is probably the biggest philosophical reason for our difference.

At the center of my objection to cloning is my belief in the profundity of sex. At the center of Wilson’s is the concern that all children have parents. But the fact is we will be increasingly incapable of defending the institution of marriage and the two-parent family if we are indifferent to its natural grounding in sex. Can we ensure that all children will have two parents if we ignore the natural sexual foundations of parenthood?

Cloning is asexual reproduction. A clone is the twin rather than the offspring of its “source.” It has no parents, biologically speaking, unless its “parents” are the mother and father of the person from whom it was cloned.

Wilson is willing to define motherhood solely by the act of givingbirth. And if the clone’s birth mother is married, her husband will be, by (social) definition, its father. In that way Wilson tries to give a virtually normal biparental identity to this radically aparental child, but in doing so Wilson clings to nature and the natural facts of gestation and parturition as his anchor. For that reason he argues elsewhere for a ban on the laboratory growth of a “newborn” child from sperm to term: “Without human birth, the parents’ attitude toward the infant would be deeply compromised.”

By playing down cloning’s psychological problems of identity and individuality, Wilson is able to treat it as an innocent prospect. Butthere are unique dangers in mixing the twin relationship with the parent-child relationship. Virtually no parent is going to be able to treat a clone of himself or herself as one does a child generated by the lottery of sex. The new life will constantly be scrutinized in relation to that of the older copy. Even where undue parental expectations on the clone (say, to live the same life, only without its errors)are avoided, the child is likely to be ever a curiosity. Moreover, clones, because they are the flesh and blood (and the look-alike) of only one parent, are likely to be especially implicated in tensions between the parents. In the event of a divorce, will mommy still love the clone of daddy?

Wilson is also naive in believing that cloning can be confined to married couples seeking a remedy for childlessness. In vitro fertilization has not been so restricted; single women now regularly use artificial insemination with donor sperm. Commercial sperm banks are thriving, including those that specialize in eugenics (by providing only sperm from “geniuses”). Couples interested in cloning, especially those who have figured out the dangers of self-cloning, will certainly want to make use of “high-class” donor nuclei. Cloning provides the powerful opening salvo in the campaign to exercise control over the quality of offspring. The dangerous attitude that sees children as products for manipulation rather than gifts to be treasured will be further accelerated.

Given the fracture of the once-respected and solid bonds among sex, love, procreation, and stable marriage, and the relentless march oftechnology, it will prove impossible to preserve Wilson’s faint hopes for limiting cloning to the sphere of traditional parenthood and family life. The right to reproduce (or not) is now widely regarded as a right belonging to individuals: Who are Wilson and I to stand in the way of any unmarried woman’s desire for personal fulfillment through motherhood of a clone?

The right to reproduce is also being expanded to include a right to the type of child one wishes. Parents already exercise some choice,through genetic screening, over the quality of their children. Strange requests are already being voiced. Lobbyists for the congenitally deaf are seeking to abort non-deaf fetuses as part of their campaign to “normalize” deafness and to provide only deaf children for the deaf. Gay rights organizations urged the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to declare in favor of cloning. Some advocates even argued that, should homosexuality be shown to have a genetic basis, homosexuals would have an obligation to reproduce through cloning to preserve their kind!

Even if human cloning is rarely undertaken, a society in which it is tolerated is no longer the same society–any more than is a society that permits incest or cannibalism or slavery on even a small scale. It is a society that has forgotten how to shudder, that rationalizes away the abominable. A society that allows cloning has, whether it knows it or not, tacitly said yes to converting procreation into fabrication, and to treating our children as pure projects of our will.

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The Cloning Debates and Progress in Biotechnology

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Paul L Wolf, George Liggins, Dan Mercola, The Cloning Debates and Progress in Biotechnology, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 43, Issue 11, 1 November 1997, Pages 2019–2020, https://doi.org/10.1093/clinchem/43.11.2019

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The perception by humans of what is doable is itself a great determiner of future events. Thus, the successful sheep cloning experiment leading to “Dolly” by Ian Wilmut and associates at Roslin Institute, Midlothian, UK, compels us to look in the mirror and consider the issue of human cloning. Should it occur, and if not, how should that opposing mandate be managed? If human cloning should have an acceptable role, what is that role and how should it be monitored and supervised?

In the February 27, 1997, issue of Nature , Ian Wilmut et al. reported that they cloned a sheep (which they named “Dolly”) by transferring the nuclear DNA from an adult sheep udder cell into an egg whose DNA had been removed ( 1 ). Their cloning experiments have led to widespread debate on the potential application of this remarkable technique to the cloning of humans. Following the Scottish researchers’ startling report, President Clinton declared his opposition to using this technique to clone humans. He moved swiftly to order that federal funds not be used for such an experiment and asked an independent panel of experts, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), chaired by Princeton University President Harold Shapiro, to report to the White House with recommendations for a national policy on human cloning. According to recommendations by the NBAC, human cloning is likely to become a crime in the US in the near future. The Commission’s main recommendation is to enact federal legislation to prohibit any attempts, whether in a research or a clinical setting, to create a human through somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning.

The concept of genetic manipulation is not new and has been a general practice for more than a century, through practices ranging from selective cross-pollination in plants to artificial insemination in domestic farm animals.

Wilmut and his colleagues made 277 attempts before they succeeded with Dolly. Previously, investigators had reported successful cloning in frogs, mice, and cattle ( 2 )( 3 )( 4 )( 5 ), and 1 week after Wilmut’s report, Don Wolf and colleagues at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center reported their cloning of two rhesus monkeys by utilizing embryonic cells. The achievement of Wilmut’s team shocked nucleic acid experts, who thought it would be an impossible feat. They believed that the DNA of adult cells could not perform similarly to the DNA formed when a spermatozoa’s genes mingle with those of an ovum.

On July 25, 1997, the Roslin team also reported the production of lambs that contained human genes ( 6 ). Utilizing techniques similar to those they had used in Dolly, they inserted a human gene into the nuclei of sheep cells. These cells were next inserted into the ova of sheep from which the DNA had been removed. The resulting lambs contained the human gene in every cell. In this new procedure the DNA had been inserted into skin fibroblast cells, which are specialized cells, unlike previous procedures in which DNA was introduced into a fertilized ovum. The new lamb has been named “Polly” because she is a Poll Dorset sheep. The goal of this new genetically engineered lamb is for these lambs to produce human proteins necessary for the treatment of human genetic diseases, such as factor VIII for hemophiliacs, cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) substance for patients with cystic fibrosis, tissue plasminogen activator to induce lysis of acute coronary and cerebral artery thrombi, and human growth factor.

Charles Darwin was frightened when he concluded that humans were not specifically separated from all other animals. Not until 20 years after his discovery did he have the courage to publish his findings, which changed the way humans view life on earth. Wilmut’s amazing investigations have also created worldwide fear, misunderstanding, and ethical shock waves. Politicians and a few scientists are proposing legislation to outlaw human cloning ( 7 ). Although the accomplishment of cloning clearly could provide many benefits to medicine and to conservation of endangered species of animals, politicians and a few scientists fear that the cloning procedure will be abused.

The advantages of cloning are numerous. The ability to clone dairy cattle may have a larger impact on the dairy industry than artificial insemination. Cloning might be utilized to produce multiple copies of animals that are especially good at producing meat, milk, or wool. The average cow makes 13 000 pounds (5800 kg) of milk a year. Cloning of cows that are superproducers of milk might result in cows producing 40 000 pounds (18 000 kg) of milk a year.

Wilmut’s recent success in cloning “Polly” represents his main interest in cloning ( 8 ). He believes in cloning animals able to produce proteins that are or may prove to be useful in medicine. Cloned female animals could produce large amounts of various important proteins in their milk, resulting in female animals that serve as living drug factories. Investigators might be able to clone animals affected with human diseases, e.g., cystic fibrosis, and investigate new therapies for the human diseases expressed by these animals.

Another possibility of cloning could be to change the proteins on the cell surface of heart, liver, kidney, or lung, i.e., to produce organs resembling human organs and enhancing the supply of organs for human transplantation. The altered donor organs, e.g., from pigs, would be less subject to rejection by the human recipient. The application of cloning in the propagation of endangered species and conservation of gene pools has been proposed as another important use of the cloning technique ( 9 )( 10 ).

The opponents of cloning have especially focused on banning the cloning of humans ( 11 ). The UK, Australia, Spain, Germany, and Denmark have implemented laws barring human cloning. Opponents of human cloning have cited potential ethical and legal implications. They emphasize that individuals are more than a sum of their genes. A clone of an individual might have a different environment and thus might be a different person psychologically and have a different “soul.” Cloning of a human is replication and not procreation.

Morally questionable uses of genetic material transfer and cloning obviously exist. For example, infertility experts might be especially interested in the cloning technique to produce identical twins, triplets, or quadruplets. Parents of a child who has a terminal illness might wish to have a clone of the child to replace the dying child. The old stigma, eugenics, also raises its ugly head if infertile couples wish to use the nuclear transfer techniques to ensure that their “hard-earned” offspring will possess excellent genes. Moral perspectives will differ tremendously in these cases. Judgments about the appropriateness of such uses are outside the realm of science.

Opponents of animal cloning are concerned that cloning will negate genetic diversity of livestock. This also applies to human cloning, which could negate genetic diversity of humans. Cloning creates, by definition, a second class of human, a human with a determined genotype called into existence, however benevolently, at the behest of another. The insulation of selection-of-mate is lost, and the second class is created. Few contrasts could be so clear. Selection-of-mate is so imprecise that, at present, would-be parents have to accept a complete new genome for the sake of including or excluding one or a few traits; cloning, in contrast, is the precise determination of all genes. If we acknowledge that the creation of a second class of humans is unethical, then we preempt any argument that some motivations for human cloning may be acceptable.

The opponents of cloning also fear that biotechnically cloned foods might increase the risk of humans acquiring some malignancies or infections such as “mad cow disease,” a prion spongiform dementia encephalopathy (human Jakob–Creutzfeldt disease).

The technological advances associated with manipulation of genetic materials now permit us to envision replacement of defective genes with “good” genes. Although current progress is not sufficient to make this practical today for human diseases, any efforts to stop such research as a result of cloning hysteria would preclude the development of true cures for many hereditary human diseases. Unreasonable restrictions on the use of human tissues in gene transfer research will have the inevitable consequences of delaying, if not preventing, the development of strategies to combat defective genes.

Wise legislation will enable humankind to realize the benefits of gene transfer technologies without risking the horrors that could arise from misuse of these technologies. Our hope is that such wise legislation is what will be enacted. In our view, the controversy surrounding human cloning must not lead to prohibitions that would prevent advances similar to those described here.

Wilmut I, Schnieke AE, McWhire J, Kind AJ, Campbell KHS. Viable offspring derived from fetal and adult mammalian cells. Nature 1997 ; 385 : 810 -813.

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Kwon OY, Kono T. Production of identical sextuplet mice by transferring metaphase nuclei from 4-cell embryos. J Reprod Fert Abst Ser 1996 ; 17 : 30 .

Kolata G. Lab yields lamb with human gene. NY Times 1997;166:July 25;A12..

Specter M, Kolta G. After decades of missteps, how cloning succeeded. NY Times 1997;166:March 3;B6–8..

Ibrahim YM. Ian Wilmut. NY Times 1997;166:February 24;B8..

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• Early cloning experiments
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Ethical controversy

• What is cloning?
• Why is cloning controversial?
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• National Geographic - Cloning
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Cloning
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Cloning
• National Human Genome Research Institute - ​Cloning Fact Sheet
• National Center for Biotechnology Information - Cloning: Definitions And Applications
• CellPress - Robert Koch: The Grandfather of Cloning?
• Academia - Dolly and the history of cloning
• Live Science - How does cloning work?
• Biology LibreTexts - Cloning
• BCcampus Open Publishing - Plasmids and Cloning Basics
• WebMD - The Facts and Fiction of Cloning
• cloning - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
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• Table Of Contents

Human reproductive cloning remains universally condemned, primarily for the psychological, social, and physiological risks associated with cloning. A cloned embryo intended for implantation into a womb requires thorough molecular testing to fully determine whether an embryo is healthy and whether the cloning process is complete. In addition, as demonstrated by 100 failed attempts to generate a cloned macaque in 2007, a viable pregnancy is not guaranteed. Because the risks associated with reproductive cloning in humans introduce a very high likelihood of loss of life, the process is considered unethical. There are other philosophical issues that also have been raised concerning the nature of reproduction and human identity that reproductive cloning might violate. Concerns about eugenics , the once popular notion that the human species could be improved through the selection of individuals possessing desired traits, also have surfaced, since cloning could be used to breed “better” humans, thus violating principles of human dignity, freedom, and equality.

There also exists controversy over the ethics of therapeutic and research cloning . Some individuals and groups have an objection to therapeutic cloning, because it is considered the manufacture and destruction of a human life, even though that life has not developed past the embryonic stage. Those who are opposed to therapeutic cloning believe that the technique supports and encourages acceptance of the idea that human life can be created and expended for any purpose. However, those who support therapeutic cloning believe that there is a moral imperative to heal the sick and to seek greater scientific knowledge. Many of these supporters believe that therapeutic and research cloning should be not only allowed but also publicly funded, similar to other types of disease and therapeutics research. Most supporters also argue that the embryo demands special moral consideration, requiring regulation and oversight by funding agencies. In addition, it is important to many philosophers and policy makers that women and couples not be exploited for the purpose of obtaining their embryos or eggs.

There are laws and international conventions that attempt to uphold certain ethical principles and regulations concerning cloning. In 2005 the United Nations passed a nonbinding Declaration on Human Cloning that calls upon member states “to adopt all measures necessary to prohibit all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.” This does provide leeway for member countries to pursue therapeutic cloning. The United Kingdom , through its Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, issues licenses for creating human embryonic stem cells through nuclear transfer . These licenses ensure that human embryos are cloned for legitimate therapeutic and research purposes aimed at obtaining scientific knowledge about disease and human development . The licenses require the destruction of embryos by the 14th day of development, since this is when embryos begin to develop the primitive streak, the first indicator of an organism’s nervous system . The United States federal government has not passed any laws regarding human cloning due to disagreement within the legislative branch about whether to ban all cloning or to ban only reproductive cloning. The Dickey-Wicker amendment , attached to U.S. appropriations bills since 1995, has prevented the use of federal dollars to fund the harm or destruction of human embryos for research. It is presumed that nuclear transfer and any other form of cloning is subject to this restriction.

How We Feel about Human Cloning

Guest post by Joshua May

Suppose you desperately want a healthy child to build a family of your own.  As is increasingly common, however, you can’t do it naturally – whether from infertility, a genetic disease you don’t want to pass on, or a non-traditional relationship.  If you seek a genetic connection with the child, there are some limitations to the main alternatives: adoption, surrogacy, and in vitro fertilization.  You may yearn for more options.

How would you feel about cloning?  Take the nucleus of a cell from yourself or a loved one, then put it into an egg that will eventually develop into a baby that shares nearly all the genes of the donor cell.  The resulting baby will simply be a kind of ‘delayed twin’ of the donor.

Most people believe this is immoral.  There’s a bit more support for therapeutic uses that merely create new tissue, for example.  But, at least in the US and UK, people overwhelmingly condemn cloning for the purposes of creating new human lives.  In fact, a recent poll suggests there is little disagreement in America over this issue, where human cloning is among the most widely condemned topics (alongside polygamy and infidelity).

That’s what people think, but how do they feel ?  Controversial bioethical issues often generate intense feelings.  Some bioethicists treat cloning in particular as a line in the sand that we mustn’t cross, for fear of sliding down a slippery slope to a dystopia.

Consider Leon Kass, who played a major role in public policy as chair of George W. Bush’s President’s Council on Bioethics.  Kass argues that there is wisdom in repugnance toward human cloning, allowing us to ‘intuit and feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things that we rightfully hold dear’.  As opposed to mere unease or sadness, Kass and some others have argued that disgust is such a powerful and distinctive emotion that we should take it seriously as a moral guide when deliberating about ethical issues.

An empirical claim lurks.  Such bioethicists assume that people in general share their reaction of repugnance. Besides, if we can uncover the emotional reactions people tend to feel toward disputed moral issues, then we can better understand why they hold the beliefs they do.  Does the prospect of cloning humans make us sick?  Scared?  Sad?  Angry?  Excited?  At ease?

In my paper , I provide some initial evidence that people (at least in the States) feel primarily anxious and curious about human reproductive cloning.  These were the most frequently self-reported negative and positive emotions, not disgust, fear, sadness, anger, excitement, amusement, comfort, or joy. Now disgust was interestingly the third most commonly reported negative emotion when selected from a pre-set list.  But only about one third of participants selected it, and even fewer mentioned disgust before seeing such a list.  Moreover, the term ‘disgust’ is used in many ways, sometimes just to indicate one’s moral disapproval rather than an emotion.  For example, writer Philip Pullman once condemned a ban on sending prisoners books in prison, calling it ‘disgusting’ .  Such uses of the term may well be to merely signal one’s disapproval, not to report an emotional reaction that is guiding one’s judgment.

Data on people’s reactions don’t directly support the morality or immorality of human cloning.  But there are various implications.

First, it’s not so clear that there’s a ‘widespread’ reaction of repugnance to human cloning that we should heed.  Our emotional reactions are more complicated and varied.  Even if there are sound arguments against human cloning, arguments from repugnance rest on shaky ground.

Second, we should be careful to attribute certain reactions to the populace without some empirical data in support.  We should scrutinise, for example, talk of ‘the widespread repugnances of humankind,’ as Kass has put it.

Finally, I hope this initial dataset will motivate further research on how we think and feel about various contemporary moral issues.  The kinds of reactions people have can illuminate their concerns and the nature of the moral disagreements that animate public discourse.

When it comes to human cloning, for example, we now have some evidence that people don’t necessarily feel repugnance toward it and thus don’t perceive cloning as violating things they hold dear.  The combination of anxiety and curiosity may indicate instead that the morality of human cloning is question because it’s perceived as novel and unpredictable.

Read the full paper here .

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BMJ Journals

Is Human Cloning Is Wrong Essay

Imagine a world where everyone looked identical, there would be no physical diversity, instead, of everyone would be a duplicate of each other. What would differentiate one from another? What would give us our own unique identity? According to the Oxford dictionary, a clone is an organism, or cell , produced asexually from one ancestor or stock, to which they are genetically identical. Due to the rapid progress of research in human cloning , scientists are able to create genetic copies of human beings, resulting in a population, lacking genetic variety. With this in mind, I believe the cloning of humans to be wrong; it is fundamentally unethical as it leads to the degrading of humanity (Humans?) Moreover, there are also major risks that are associated with the development of the medical cloning technology. For this reason, I strongly believe that scientists should seize research to successfully clone humans. To make a clone, the nucleus from the egg cell of the mother is removed and replaced with the nucleus from the cell of the organism to be cloned. An electric shock triggers the cells to divide by mitosis and an embryo is formed. …show more content…

Human cloning tends to take place in unreliable laboratories, with scientists who have limited knowledge on what to do if a step they take is incorrect because they are usually just experimenting in unknown territory. (is this true?? Lots of laws regarding cloning especially in the UK) This leads to major ethical difficulties as scientists are playing with human life. Furthermore, if a clone is made and there is even the slightest mishap, whereby the clone could be inclined to suffer if given the chance to grow, some would strongly oppose due to the fact that human life is so complex and needs a perfect designer, not a person in a laboratory wearing a white coat and plastic goggles. Human life should take place naturally, not as an experiment in a lab as it diminishes the value of

The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

There are many arguments in support of human cloning. Some are fairly easy to accept, such as elimination of genetic disease”(Human Cloning). With the technology of cloning, the percentages of disease could reduce. That also includes genetic issues could be solved as well. Cloning has been said to give therapeutic support when making new cures.

Should Taxpayer Money Go To Cloning Essay

Should Taxpayer Money Go Towards Cloning? If therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning are both dangerous then why allow it in human and animal cloning? Cloning is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals. “95% of cloning have resulted in failures.”

Human Cloning In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

The subject of cloning can easily be related to the novel we have been reading, Frankenstein. Both have to do with the topic of bringing life into the world in an unnatural way. Just like bringing the monster to life was viewed differently to different people, cloning is the same. The event of Dolly the sheep, the first adult mammal clone, surviving the cloning process started a huge set of events that has made the amount research about cloning increase exponentially. This is very similar to how Victor Frankenstein creating the monster was the first action of many that eventually lead to his demise.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research Persuasive Essay

Over the years, there have been many controversial issues surrounding medical research, but one of the most arguable topics of all time is the use of embryonic stem cells. Some individuals believe that extracting stem cells from unborn babies will be useful to create new medications or, in most cases, help regenerate damaged cells. Although, many people disagree with the process scientists use to obtain these stem cells. By continuing embryonic stem cell research, scientists are denying an unborn child the chance to live, they are not letting nature take its intended course, and they are not adhering to the religious or moral beliefs of many people.

Frankenstein Pros And Cons Of Cloning

The economy takes a big hit from it resulting in inflation. According to listcrux.com, “One of the very rational reasons for avoiding cloning is that it is a very expensive process. It requires technically sophisticated resources for which one may have to shell out a lot of money. Plus, as I mentioned, there are lot of risks involved in cloning. With the success rate presently being only around 1%, it is not economically viable to practice large scale cloning.

Year 10 Science Assessment Task: Research

Your Opinion My Opinion is that it is a bad process because there is a risk of mutations. This can result in deaths and extreme abnormalities in the cloned

The Ethics Of Cloning In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Bioethics have limited cloning to just animals such as a sheep as well as a monkey, but as technology has advanced, so it seems that humans are closer to being able to clone a human. Genetic engineering, specifically cloning, denies the dignity of human life because it crosses the ethical borders in which mankind is attempting to surpass God as a creator. Throughout time, as well as in literature, hubris has been shown when creating life in unnatural ways. In the

The Dangers Of Cloning In Frankenstein

Dangers of Playing God and Human Cloning In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein plays god and it costs him dearly. The cloning of humans would inevitably include controlling of human life, with dangers such as genetic abnormalities, and possible issues with human rights or societal views. When Victor makes his creation, he does not consider possible problems he might be causing for his creation. Victor’s creation suffers for all of the reasons listed to why human cloning can be dangerous.

Frankenstein And The Birthmark Analysis

As Maya Angelou once said “In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” Though diversity exists in the world today, that could diminish due to the downfalls caused by human cloning. There may be controversy surrounding human cloning, but the consequences will desolate society if the issues with it are not addressed. In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, a scientist obsessed with life animates a creature who becomes evil from society treatment. Moreover, in “The Birthmark,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a newly married scientist becomes obsessed with a hand shaped birthmark on his wife’s cheek, which leads him to attempt to remove it but to no avail, as he ends up killing her.

Misuse Of Knowledge In Frankenstein

I believe human cloning interferes with nature in ways humanity will not be able to handle. This source states, " This could lead to a set of problems that we have no ability to handle. " The evidence suggests that human cloning can lead to the fall of humanity, due to clones becoming soverienty. However, some people believe that human cloning can be useful, due to assisting with unlawful interests. I beleive that this will only create misuse of knowledge in trying to correct clones in right paths.

Frankenstein And The Birthmark

Human Cloning, an exact replication of an adult human, should be banned in the United States of America because of its possible consequences to society as a whole, as proven by the science fiction novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, and the short story “The Birthmark,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Human cloning raises ethical concerns considering how society will react and change due to the clonal population. Subsequently, scientists are forced to ask themselves the question, “If cloning is seen as a way to reproduce the ‘best’ in the human species, who decides which qualities are best?” (Cloning 2). If humans are allowed to clone their offspring, then soon most people would either want their children to look like the idea of ‘perfect’ created

Essay On The Pros And Cons Of Animal Cloning

Cloning at the gene level is acceptable and is done extensively in research areas. However, therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning raises skepticism and debate both in the general society and the scientific community. Among the argument raised is the possibility of cloning human beings; whether the individuals derived are seen as a complete human with the whole set of human rights attached to them. Body >>> Scientific Advantage <<< 2 PAR Fiester (2005) states that most of the animal cloning projects are driven by the goal of meeting human needs such as treatment of diseases, food production, and entertainment. However, there are animal cloning projects aimed at conserving endangered or

Argumentative Essay: The Ethics Of Human Cloning

Most people in our society, no matter what level of education that they may have, have heard of the cloning, specifically the cloning of Dolly the lamb, and have some notions regarding the idea of cloning humans. "The successes in animal cloning suggest to some that the technology has matured sufficiently to justify its application to human cloning" (Jaenisch et al.). However, not every agrees that human cloning is a something that should be put into practice (Hoskins). There generally seem to be two basic divisions on this issue: those who find it inappropriate and unethical, and those who find it a reasonable and necessary step in the progression of scientific research (Lustig).

Human Cloning Be Banned Essay

Do you know that based on the scientific studies, 90% human cloning tuned out to be unsuccessful. Human cloning(modifying babies) is a process of producing new identical babies by altering their genomes. Some of studies show that scientists successfully cloned animals such as cows, Pigs, and sheep. For the past 3-5 years human cloning have a lot of debates and controversies between peoples. However Human cloning is dangerous for the new engineered baby and their moms, so it should be banned to prevent new disease, to constantly limit the population of dying human beings, and to stop unnecessary fees to modify babies.

Cloning Persuasive Speech

Many scientists are trying to clone humans but is it ever justified? There are a whole lot of debates on this topic, and I am strongly against it. Human cloning is ethically wrong; there are many risks involved, which will lead to detrimental effects on human society. Before going into my points, I would like to talk about what cloning is. According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, cloning is “a number of different processes that can be used to produce genetically identical copies of a biological entity.”

More about Is Human Cloning Is Wrong Essay

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Cloning humans? Biological, ethical, and social considerations

Author contributions: F.J.A. wrote the paper.

There are, in mankind, two kinds of heredity: biological and cultural. Cultural inheritance makes possible for humans what no other organism can accomplish: the cumulative transmission of experience from generation to generation. In turn, cultural inheritance leads to cultural evolution, the prevailing mode of human adaptation. For the last few millennia, humans have been adapting the environments to their genes more often than their genes to the environments. Nevertheless, natural selection persists in modern humans, both as differential mortality and as differential fertility, although its intensity may decrease in the future. More than 2,000 human diseases and abnormalities have a genetic causation. Health care and the increasing feasibility of genetic therapy will, although slowly, augment the future incidence of hereditary ailments. Germ-line gene therapy could halt this increase, but at present, it is not technically feasible. The proposal to enhance the human genetic endowment by genetic cloning of eminent individuals is not warranted. Genomes can be cloned; individuals cannot. In the future, therapeutic cloning will bring enhanced possibilities for organ transplantation, nerve cells and tissue healing, and other health benefits.

Chimpanzees are the closest relatives of Homo sapiens , our species. There is a precise correspondence bone by bone between the skeletons of a chimpanzee and a human. Humans bear young like apes and other mammals. Humans have organs and limbs similar to birds, reptiles, and amphibians; these similarities reflect the common evolutionary origin of vertebrates. However, it does not take much reflection to notice the distinct uniqueness of our species. Conspicuous anatomical differences between humans and apes include bipedal gait and an enlarged brain. Much more conspicuous than the anatomical differences are the distinct behaviors and institutions. Humans have symbolic language, elaborate social and political institutions, codes of law, literature and art, ethics, and religion; humans build roads and cities, travel by motorcars, ships, and airplanes, and communicate by means of telephones, computers, and televisions.

Human Origins

The hominin lineage diverged from the chimpanzee lineage 6–7 Ma, and it evolved exclusively in the African continent until the emergence of Homo erectus , somewhat before 1.8 Ma. Shortly after its emergence in tropical or subtropical Africa, H. erectus spread to other continents. Fossil remains of H. erectus (sensu lato) are known from Africa, Indonesia (Java), China, the Middle East, and Europe. H. erectus fossils from Java have been dated at 1.81 ± 0.04 and 1.66 ± 0.04 Ma and from Georgia at 1.6–1.8 Ma ( 1 ). Anatomically distinctive H. erectus fossils have been found in Spain, deposited before 780,000 y ago, the oldest in southern Europe ( 2 ).

The transition from H. erectus to H. sapiens occurred around 400,000 y ago, although this date is not well determined owing to uncertainty as to whether some fossils are erectus or archaic forms of sapiens. H. erectus persisted for some time in Asia, until 250,000 y ago in China and perhaps until 100,000 ago in Java, and thus was contemporary with early members of its descendant species, H. sapiens. Fossil remains of Neandertal hominids ( Homo neanderthalensis ), with brains as large as those of H. sapiens , appeared in Europe earlier than 200,000 y ago and persisted until 30,000 or 40,000 y ago ( 3 , 4 ).

There is controversy about the origin of modern humans. Some anthropologists argue that the transition from H. erectus to archaic H. sapiens and later to anatomically modern humans occurred consonantly in various parts of the Old World. Proponents of this “multiregional model” emphasize fossil evidence showing regional continuity in the transition from H. erectus to archaic and then modern H. sapiens . Most anthropologists argue instead that modern humans first arose in Africa somewhat before 100,000 y ago and from there spread throughout the world, eventually replacing elsewhere the preexisting populations of H. erectus , H. neanderthalensis, and archaic H. sapiens . The African origin of modern humans is supported by a wealth of recent genetic evidence and is therefore favored by many evolutionists ( 2 , 4 ).

We know about these matters in three ways: by comparing living primates, including humans, with each other; by discovery and investigation of fossil remains of primates that lived in the past; and by comparing their DNA, proteins, and other molecules. DNA and proteins give us the best information about how closely related we are to each of the primates and those to each other. However, to know how the human lineage changed in anatomy and behavior over time as our ancestors became more and more human-like, we have to study fossils and the tools they used and made, as well as other remnants of their activities ( 2 , 5 ).

Humans live in groups that are socially organized and so do other primates. However, other primate societies do not approach the complexity of human social organization. A distinctive human social trait is culture, which may be understood as the set of nonstrictly biological human activities and creations. Culture includes social and political institutions, ways of doing things, religious and ethical traditions, language, common sense and scientific knowledge, art and literature, technology, and in general all of the creations of the human mind. The advent of culture has brought with it cultural evolution, a superorganic mode of evolution superimposed on the organic mode, that has become the dominant mode of human evolution. Cultural evolution has come about because of cultural inheritance, a distinctively human mode of achieving adaptation to the environment ( 2 , 6 , 7 ).

There are in mankind two kinds of heredity: the biological and the cultural. Biological inheritance in humans is very much like that in any other sexually reproducing organism; it is based on the transmission of genetic information encoded in DNA from one generation to the next by means of the sex cells. Cultural inheritance, on the other hand, is based on transmission of information by a teaching-learning process, which is in principle independent of biological parentage. Culture is transmitted by instruction and learning, by example and imitation, through books, newspapers, radio, television, and motion pictures, through works of art, and through any other means of communication. Culture is acquired by every person from parents, relatives, and neighbors and from the whole human environment. Acquired cultural traits may be beneficial but also toxic; for example, racial prejudice or religious bigotry.

Biological heredity is Mendelian or vertical; it is transmitted from parents to their children, and only inherited traits can be transmitted to the progeny. (New mutations are insignificant in the present context.) Cultural heredity is Lamarckian: acquired characters can be transmitted to the progeny. However, cultural heredity goes beyond Lamarckian heredity, because it is horizontal and oblique and not only vertical. Traits can be acquired from and transmitted to other members of the same generation, whether or not they are relatives, and also from and to all other individuals with whom a person has contact, whether they are from the same or from any previous or ensuing generation.

Cultural inheritance makes possible for people what no other organism can accomplish—the cumulative transmission of experience from generation to generation. Animals can learn from experience, but they do not transmit their experiences or their discoveries (at least not to any large extent) to the following generations. Animals have individual memory, but they do not have a “social memory.” Humans, on the other hand, have developed a culture because they can transmit cumulatively their experiences from generation to generation.

Cultural inheritance makes possible cultural evolution, a new mode of adaptation to the environment that is not available to nonhuman organisms. Organisms in general adapt to the environment by means of natural selection, by changing over generations their genetic constitution to suit the demands of the environment. However, humans, and humans alone, can also adapt by changing the environment to suit the needs of their genes. (Animals build nests and modify their environment also in other ways, but the manipulation of the environment by any nonhuman species is trivial compared with mankind's manipulation.) For the last few millennia, humans have been adapting the environments to their genes more often than their genes to the environments.

To extend its geographical habitat, or to survive in a changing environment, a population of organisms must become adapted, through slow accumulation of genetic variants sorted out by natural selection, to the new climatic conditions, different sources of food, different competitors, and so on. The discovery of fire and the use of shelter and clothing allowed humans to spread from the warm tropical and subtropical regions of the Old World to the whole Earth, except for the frozen wastes of Antarctica, without the anatomical development of fur or hair. Humans did not wait for genetic mutants promoting wing development; they have conquered the air in a somewhat more efficient and versatile way by building flying machines. People travel the rivers and the seas without gills or fins. The exploration of outer space has started without waiting for mutations providing humans with the ability to breathe with low oxygen pressures or to function in the absence of gravity; astronauts carry their own oxygen and specially equipped pressure suits. From their obscure beginnings in Africa, humans have become the most widespread and abundant species of mammal on earth. It was the appearance of culture as a superorganic form of adaptation that made mankind the most successful animal species.

Cultural adaptation has prevailed in mankind over biological adaptation because it is a more effective mode of adaptation; it is more rapid and it can be directed. A favorable genetic mutation newly arisen in an individual can be transmitted to a sizeable part of the human species only through innumerable generations. However, a new scientific discovery or technical achievement can be transmitted to the whole of mankind, potentially at least, in less than one generation. Witness the rapid spread of personal computers, iPhones, and the Internet. Moreover, whenever a need arises, culture can directly pursue the appropriate changes to meet the challenge. On the contrary, biological adaptation depends on the accidental availability of a favorable mutation, or of a combination of several mutations, at the time and place where the need arises ( 2 , 6 , 7 ).

Biological Evolution in Modern Humans

There is no scientific basis to the claim sometimes made that the biological evolution of mankind has stopped, or nearly so, at least in technologically advanced countries. It is asserted that the progress of medicine, hygiene, and nutrition have largely eliminated death before middle age; that is, most people live beyond reproductive age, after which death is inconsequential for natural selection. That mankind continues to evolve biologically can be shown because the necessary and sufficient conditions for biological evolution persist. These conditions are genetic variability and differential reproduction. There is a wealth of genetic variation in mankind. With the trivial exception of identical twins, developed from a single fertilized egg, no two people who live now, lived in the past, or will live in the future, are likely to be genetically identical. Much of this variation is relevant to natural selection ( 5 , 8 , 9 ).

Natural selection is simply differential reproduction of alternative genetic variants. Natural selection will occur in mankind if the carriers of some genotypes are likely to leave more descendants than the carriers of other genotypes. Natural selection consists of two main components: differential mortality and differential fertility; both persist in modern mankind, although the intensity of selection due to postnatal mortality has been somewhat attenuated.

Death may occur between conception and birth (prenatal) or after birth (postnatal). The proportion of prenatal deaths is not well known. Death during the early weeks of embryonic development may go totally undetected. However, it is known that no less than 20% of all ascertained human conceptions end in spontaneous abortion during the first 2 mo of pregnancy. Such deaths are often due to deleterious genetic constitutions, and thus they have a selective effect in the population. The intensity of this form of selection has not changed substantially in modern mankind, although it has been slightly reduced with respect to a few genes such as those involved in Rh blood group incompatibility.

Postnatal mortality has been considerably reduced in recent times in technologically advanced countries. For example, in the United States, somewhat less than 50% of those born in 1840 survived to age 45, whereas the average life expectancy for people born in the United States in 1960 is 78 y ( Table 1 ) ( 8 , 10 ). In some regions of the world, postnatal mortality remains quite high, although there it has also generally decreased in recent decades. Mortality before the end of reproductive age, particularly where it has been considerably reduced, is largely associated with genetic defects, and thus it has a favorable selective effect in human populations. Several thousand genetic variants are known that cause diseases and malformations in humans; such variants are kept at low frequencies due to natural selection.

Percent of Americans born between 1840 and 1960 surviving to ages 15 and 45

Reprinted from ref. 8 .

It might seem at first that selection due to differential fertility has been considerably reduced in industrial countries as a consequence of the reduction in the average number of children per family that has taken place. However, this is not so. The intensity of fertility selection depends not on the mean number of children per family, but on the variance in the number of children per family. It is clear why this should be so. Assume that all people of reproductive age marry and that all have exactly the same number of children. In this case, there would not be fertility selection whether couples all had very few or all had very many children. Assume, on the other hand, that the mean number of children per family is low, but some families have no children at all or very few, whereas others have many. In this case, there would be considerable opportunity for selection—the genotypes of parents producing many children would increase in frequency at the expense of those having few or none. Studies of human populations have shown that the opportunity for natural selection often increases as the mean number of children decreases. An extensive study published years ago showed that the index of opportunity for selection due to fertility was four times larger among United States women born in the 20th century, with an average of less than three children per woman, than among women in the Gold Coast of Africa or in rural Quebec, who had three times or more children on average ( Table 2 ) ( 8 , 11 ). There is no evidence that natural selection due to fertility has decreased in modern human populations.

Mean number of children per family and index of opportunity for fertility selection I f , in various human populations

I f is calculated as the variance divided by the square of the mean number of children. The opportunity for selection usually increases as the mean number of children decreases. Reprinted from ref. 8 .

Natural selection may decrease in intensity in the future, but it will not disappear altogether. As long as there is genetic variation and the carriers of some genotypes are more likely to reproduce than others, natural selection will continue operating in human populations. Cultural changes, such as the development of agriculture, migration from the country to the cities, environmental pollution, and many others, create new selective pressures. The pressures of city life are partly responsible for the high incidence of mental disorders in certain human societies. The point to bear in mind is that human environments are changing faster than ever owing precisely to the accelerating rate of cultural change, and environmental changes create new selective pressures, thus fueling biological evolution.

Natural selection is the process of differential reproduction of alternative genetic variants. In terms of single genes, variation occurs when two or more alleles are present in the population at a given gene locus. How much genetic variation exists in the current human population? The answer is “quite a lot,” as will be presently shown, but natural selection will take place only if the alleles of a particular gene have different effects on fitness; that is, if alternative alleles differentially impact the probability of survival and reproduction.

The two genomes that we inherit from each parent are estimated to differ at about one or two nucleotides per thousand. The human genome consists of somewhat more than 3 billion nucleotides ( 12 ). Thus, about 3–6 million nucleotides are different between the two genomes of each human individual, which is a lot of genetic polymorphism. Moreover, the process of mutation introduces new variation in any population every generation. The rate of mutation in the human genome is estimated to be about 10 −8 , which is one nucleotide mutation for every hundred million nucleotides, or about 30 new mutations per genome per generation. Thus, every human has about 60 new mutations (30 in each genome) that were not present in the parents. If we consider the total human population, that is 60 mutations per person multiplied by 7 billion people, which is about 420 billion new mutations per generation that are added to the preexisting 3–6 million polymorphic nucleotides per individual.

That is a lot of mutations, even if many are redundant. Moreover, we must remember that the polymorphisms that count for natural selection are those that impact the probability of survival and reproduction of their carriers. Otherwise, the variant nucleotides may increase or decrease in frequency by chance, a process that evolutionists call “genetic drift,” but will not be impacted by natural selection ( 2 , 12 , 13 ).

Genetic Disorders

More than 2,000 human diseases and abnormalities that have a genetic causation have been identified in the human population. Genetic disorders may be dominant, recessive, multifactorial, or chromosomal. Dominant disorders are caused by the presence of a single copy of the defective allele, so that the disorder is expressed in heterozygous individuals: those having one normal and one defective allele. In recessive disorders, the defective allele must be present in both alleles, that is, it is inherited from each parent to be expressed. Multifactorial disorders are caused by interaction among several gene loci; chromosomal disorders are due to the presence or absence of a full chromosome or a fragment of a chromosome ( 14 , 15 ).

Examples of dominant disorders are some forms of retinoblastoma and other kinds of blindness, achondroplastic dwarfism, and Marfan syndrome (which is thought to have affected President Lincoln). Examples of recessive disorders are cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease, and sickle cell anemia (caused by an allele that in heterozygous condition protects against malaria). Examples of multifactorial diseases are spina bifida and cleft palate. Among the most common chromosomal disorders are Down syndrome, caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21, and various kinds due to the absence of one sex chromosome or the presence of an extra one, beyond the normal condition of XX for women and XY for men. Examples are Turner’s syndrome (XO) and Klinefelter’s syndrome (XXY) ( 16 ).

The incidence of genetic disorders expressed in the living human population is estimated to be no less than 2.56%, impacting about 180 million people. Natural selection reduces the incidence of the genes causing disease, more effectively in the case of dominant disorders, where all carriers of the gene will express the disease, than for recessive disorders, which are expressed only in homozygous individuals. Consider, for example, phenylketonuria (PKU), a lethal disease if untreated, due to homozygosis for a recessive gene, which has an incidence of 1 in 10,000 newborns or 0.01%. PKU is due to an inability to metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine with devastating mental and physical effects. A very elaborate diet free of phenylalanine allows the patient to survive and reproduce if started early in life. The frequency of the PKU allele is about 1%, so that in heterozygous conditions it is present in more than 100 million people, but only the 0.01% of people who are homozygous express the disease and are subject to natural selection. The reduction of genetic disorders due to natural selection is balanced with their increase due to the incidence of new mutations.

Let’s consider another example. Hereditary retinoblastoma is a disease attributed to a dominant mutation of the gene coding for the retinoblastoma protein, RB1, but it is actually due to a deletion in chromosome 13. The unfortunate child with this condition develops a tumorous growth during infancy that, without treatment, starts in one eye and often extends to the other eye and then to the brain, causing death before puberty. Surgical treatment now makes it possible to save the life of the child if the condition is detected sufficiently early, although often one or both eyes may be lost. The treated person can live a more or less normal life, marry, and procreate. However, because the genetic determination is dominant (a gene deletion), one half of the progeny will, on the average, be born with the same genetic condition and will have to be treated. Before modern medicine, every mutation for retinoblastoma arising in the human population was eliminated from the population in the same generation owing to the death of its carrier. With surgical treatment, the mutant condition can be preserved, and new mutations arising each generation are added to those arisen in the past (refs. 17 and 18 ; www.abedia.com/wiley/index.html ).

The proportion of individuals affected by any one serious hereditary infirmity is relatively small, but there are more than 2,000 known serious physical infirmities determined by genes. When all these hereditary ailments are considered together, the proportion of persons born who will suffer from a serious handicap during their lifetimes owing to their heredity is more than 2% of the total population, as pointed out above (refs. 15 , 16 , and 19 ; www.abedia.com/wiley/index.html ).

The problem becomes more serious when mental defects are taken into consideration. More than 2% of the population is affected by schizophrenia or a related condition known as schizoid disease, ailments that may be in some cases determined by a single mutant gene. Another 3% or so of the population suffer from mild mental retardation (IQ less than 70). More than 100 million people in the world suffer from mental impairments due in good part to the genetic endowment they inherited from their parents.

Natural selection also acts on a multitude of genes that do not cause disease. Genes impact skin pigmentation, hair color and configuration, height, muscle strength and body shape, and many other anatomical polymorphisms that are apparent, as well as many that are not externally obvious, such as variations in the blood groups, in the immune system, and in the heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, and other organs. It is not always known how natural selection impacts these traits, but surely it does and does it differently in different parts of the world or at different times, as a consequence of the development of new vaccines, drugs, and medical treatments, and also as a consequence of changes in lifestyle, such as the reduction of the number of smokers or the increase in the rate of obesity in a particular country.

Genetic Therapy

Where is human evolution going? Biological evolution is directed by natural selection, which is not a benevolent force guiding evolution toward sure success. Natural selection brings about genetic changes that often appear purposeful because they are dictated by the requirements of the environment. The end result may, nevertheless, be extinction—more than 99.9% of all species that ever existed have become extinct. Natural selection has no purpose; humans alone have purposes and they alone may introduce them into their evolution. No species before mankind could select its evolutionary destiny; mankind possesses techniques to do so, and more powerful techniques for directed genetic change are becoming available. Because we are self-aware, we cannot refrain from asking what lies ahead, and because we are ethical beings, we must choose between alternative courses of action, some of which may appear as good and others as bad.

The argument has been advanced that the biological endowment of mankind is rapidly deteriorating owing precisely to the improving conditions of life and to the increasing power of modern medicine. The detailed arguments that support this contention involve some mathematical exercises, but their essence can be simply presented. Genetic changes (i.e., point or chromosome mutations) arise spontaneously in humans and in other living species. The great majority of newly arising mutations are either neutral or harmful to their carriers; only a very small fraction are likely to be beneficial. In a human population under the so-called “natural” conditions, that is, without the intervention of modern medicine and technology, the newly arising harmful mutations are eliminated from the population more or less rapidly depending on how harmful they are. The more harmful the effect of a mutation, the more rapidly it will be eliminated from the population by the process of natural selection. However, owing to medical intervention and, more recently, because of the possibility of genetic therapy, the elimination of some harmful mutations from the population is no longer taking place as rapidly and effectively as it did in the past.

Molecular biology has introduced in modern medicine a new way to cure diseases, namely genetic therapy, direct intervention in the genetic makeup of an individual. Gene therapy can be somatic or germ line. Germ-line genetic therapy would seek to correct a genetic defect, not only in the organs or tissues impacted, but also in the germ line, so that the person treated would not transmit the genetic impairment to the descendants. As of now, no interventions of germ-line therapy are seriously sought by scientists, physicians, or pharmaceutical companies.

The possibility of gene therapy was first anticipated in 1972 ( 20 ). The possible objectives are to correct the DNA of a defective gene or to insert a new gene that would allow the proper function of the gene or DNA to take place. In the case of a harmful gene, the objective would be to disrupt the gene that is not functioning properly.

The eminent biologist E. O. Wilson (2014) has stated, many would think somewhat hyperbolically, that the issue of how much to use genetic engineering to direct our own evolution, is “the greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham” ( 21 ).

The first successful interventions of gene therapy concerned patients suffering from severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), first performed in a 4-y-old girl at the National Institutes of Health in 1990 ( 22 ), soon followed by successful trials in other countries ( 23 ). Treatments were halted temporarily from 2000 to 2002 in Paris, when 2 of about 12 treated children developed a leukemia-like condition, which was indeed attributed to the gene therapy treatment. Since 2004, successful clinical trials for SCID have been performed in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany ( 24 , 25 ).

Gene therapy treatments are still considered experimental. Successful clinical trials have been performed in patients suffering from adrenoleukodystrophy, Parkinson’s disease, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, multiple myeloma, and hemophilia ( 26 , 27 ). Initially, the prevailing gene therapy methods involved recombinant viruses, but nonviral methods (transfection molecules) have become increasingly successful. Since 2013, US pharmaceutical companies have invested more than $600 million in gene therapy ( 28 ). However, in addition to the huge economic costs, technical hurdles remain. Frequent negative effects include immune response against an extraneous object introduced into human tissues, leukemia, tumors, and other disorders provoked by vector viruses. Moreover, the genetic therapy corrections are often short lived, which calls for multiple rounds of treatment, thereby increasing costs and other handicaps. In addition, many of the most common genetic disorders are multifactorial and are thus beyond current gene therapy treatment. Examples are diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis, and Alzheimer’s disease, which at the present state of knowledge and technology are not suitable for gene therapy.

If a genetic defect is corrected in the affected cells, tissues, or organs, but not in the germ line, the ova or sperm produced by the individual will transmit the defect to the progeny. A deleterious gene that might have been reduced in frequency or eliminated from the population, owing to the death or reduced fertility of the carrier, will now persist in the population and be added to its load of hereditary diseases. A consequence of genetic therapy is that the more hereditary diseases and defects are cured today, the more of them will be there to be cured in the succeeding generations. This consequence follows not only from gene therapy but also from typical medical treatments.

The Nobel laureate geneticist H. J. Muller eloquently voiced this concern about the cure, whether through genetic therapy or traditional medical treatment, of genetic ailments. “The more sick people we now cure and allow them to reproduce, the more there will be to cure in the future.” The fate toward which mankind is drifting is painted by Muller in somber colors. “The amount of genetically caused impairment suffered by the average individual…must by that time have grown….[P]eople’s time and energy…would be devoted chiefly to the effort to live carefully, to spare and to prop up their own feebleness, to soothe their inner disharmonies and, in general, to doctor themselves as effectively as possible. For everyone would be an invalid, with his own special familial twists….” (ref. 29 ; Fig. 1 ).

The bionic human, on the cover of Science : an image that could represent how H. J. Muller anticipates the human condition, a few centuries hence, showing the accumulation of physical handicaps as a consequence of the medical cure of hereditary diseases. Image by Cameron Slayden and Nathalie Cary; reprinted with permission from AAAS.

It must be pointed out that the population genetic consequences of curing hereditary diseases are not as immediate (“a few centuries hence”) as Muller anticipates. Consider, as a first example, we look at the recessive hereditary condition of PKU. The estimated frequency of the gene is q = 0.01; the expected number of humans born with PKU is q 2 = 0.0001, 1 for every 10,000 births. If all PKU individuals are cured all over the world and all of them leave as many descendants, on the average, as other humans, the frequency of the PKU allele will double after 1/q = 1/0.01 = 100 generations. If we assume 25 y per generation, we conclude that after 2,500 y, the frequency of the PKU allele will be q = 0.02, and q 2 = 0.0004, so that 4 of every 10,000 persons, rather than only 1, will be born with PKU.

In the case of dominant lethal diseases, the incidence is determined by the mutation frequency of the normal to the disease allele, which is typically of the order of m = 10 −6 –10 −8 , or between one in a million and one in one hundred million. Assuming the highest rate of m = 10 −6 , the incidence of the disease after 100 generations will become 1 for every 10,000 births. It would therefore seem likely that much earlier than 2,500 y, humans are likely to find ways of correcting hereditary ailments in the germ line, thereby stopping their transmission.

It must be pointed out that, although the proportion of individuals affected by any one serious hereditary infirmity is relatively small, there are many such hereditary ailments, which on the aggregate make the problem very serious. The problem becomes more serious when mental defects are taken into consideration. As pointed out above, more than 100 million people in the world suffer from mental impairments due in good part to the genetic endowment they inherited from their parents.

Human cloning may refer to “therapeutic cloning,” particularly the cloning of embryonic cells to obtain organs for transplantation or for treating injured nerve cells and other health purposes. Human cloning more typically refers to “reproductive cloning,” the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to obtain eggs that could develop into adult individuals.

Human cloning has occasionally been suggested as a way to improve the genetic endowment of mankind, by cloning individuals of great achievement, for example, in sports, music, the arts, science, literature, politics, and the like, or of acknowledged virtue. These suggestions seemingly have never been taken seriously. However, some individuals have expressed a wish, however unrealistic, to be cloned, and some physicians have on occasion advertised that they were ready to carry out the cloning ( 30 ). The obstacles and drawbacks are many and insuperable, at least at the present state of knowledge.

Biologists use the term cloning with variable meanings, although all uses imply obtaining copies more or less precise of a biological entity. Three common uses refer to cloning genes, cloning cells, and cloning individuals. Cloning an individual, particularly in the case of a multicellular organism, such as a plant or an animal, is not strictly possible. The genes of an individual, the genome, can be cloned, but the individual itself cannot be cloned, as it will be made clear below.

Cloning genes or, more generally, cloning DNA segments is routinely done in many genetics and pharmaceutical laboratories throughout the world ( 12 , 31 ). Technologies for cloning cells in the laboratory are seven decades old and are used for reproducing a particular type of cell, for example a skin or a liver cell, in order to investigate its characteristics.

Individual human cloning occurs naturally in the case of identical twins, when two individuals develop from a single fertilized egg. These twins are called identical, precisely because they are genetically identical to each other.

The sheep Dolly, cloned in July 1996, was the first mammal artificially cloned using an adult cell as the source of the genotype. Frogs and other amphibians were obtained by artificial cloning as early as 50 y earlier ( 32 ).

Cloning an animal by SCNT proceeds as follows. First, the genetic information in the egg of a female is removed or neutralized. Somatic (i.e., body) cells are taken from the individual selected to be cloned, and the cell nucleus (where the genetic information is stored) of one cell is transferred with a micropipette into the host oocyte. The egg, so “fertilized,” is stimulated to start embryonic development ( 33 ).

Can a human individual be cloned? The correct answer is, strictly speaking, no. What is cloned are the genes, not the individual; the genotype, not the phenotype. The technical obstacles are immense even for cloning a human’s genotype.

Ian Wilmut, the British scientist who directed the cloning project, succeeded with Dolly only after 270 trials. The rate of success for cloning mammals has notably increased over the years without ever reaching 100%. The animals presently cloned include mice, rats, goats, sheep, cows, pigs, horses, and other mammals. The great majority of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion ( 34 ). Moreover, as Wilmut noted, in many cases, the death of the fetus occurs close to term, with devastating economic, health, and emotional consequences in the case of humans ( 35 ).

In mammals, in general, the animals produced by cloning suffer from serious health handicaps, among others, gross obesity, early death, distorted limbs, and dysfunctional immune systems and organs, including liver and kidneys, and other mishaps. Even Dolly had to be euthanized early in 2003, after only 6 y of life, because her health was rapidly decaying, including progressive lung disease and arthritis ( 35 , 36 ).

The low rate of cloning success may improve in the future. It may be that the organ and other failures of those that reach birth will be corrected by technical advances. Human cloning would still face ethical objections from a majority of concerned people, as well as opposition from diverse religions. Moreover, there remains the limiting consideration asserted earlier: it might be possible to clone a person’s genes, but the individual cannot be cloned. The character, personality, and the features other than anatomical and physiological that make up the individual are not precisely determined by the genotype.

The Genotype and the Individual

The genetic makeup of an individual is its genotype. The phenotype refers to what the individual is, which includes not only the individual’s external appearance or anatomy, but also its physiology, as well as behavioral predispositions and attributes, encompassing intellectual abilities, moral values, aesthetic preferences, religious values, and, in general, all other behavioral characteristics or features, acquired by experience, imitation, learning, or in any other way throughout the individual’s life, from conception to death. The phenotype results from complex networks of interactions between the genes and the environment.

A person’s environmental influences begin, importantly, in the mother’s womb and continue after birth, through childhood, adolescence, and the whole life. Impacting behavioral experiences are associated with family, friends, schooling, social and political life, readings, aesthetic and religious experiences, and every event in the person’s life, whether conscious or not. The genotype of a person has an unlimited number, virtually infinite, of possibilities to be realized, which has been called the genotype’s “norm of reaction,” only one of which will be the case in a particular individual ( 37 ). If an adult person is cloned, the disparate life circumstances experienced many years later would surely result in a very different individual, even if anatomically the individual would resemble the genome’s donor at a similar age.

An illustration of environmental effects on the phenotype, and of interactions between the genotype and the environment, is shown in Fig. 2 ( 38 ). Three plants of the cinquefoil, Potentilla glandulosa , were collected in California—one on the coast at about 100 ft above sea level (Stanford), the second at about 4,600 ft (Mather), and the third in the Alpine zone of the Sierra Nevada at about 10,000 ft above sea level (Timberline). From each plant, three cuttings were obtained in each of several replicated experiments, which were planted in three experimental gardens at different altitudes, the same gardens from which the plants were collected. The division of one plant ensured that all three cuttings planted at different altitudes had the same genotype; that is, they were genetic clones from one another. ( P. glandulosa , like many other plants, can be reproduced by cuttings, which are genetically identical.)

Interacting effects of the genotype and the environment on the phenotype of the cinquefoil Pontentilla glandulosa . Cuttings of plants collected at different altitudes were planted in three different experimental gardens. Plants in the same row are genetically identical because they have been grown from cuttings of a single plant; plants in the same column are genetically different but have been grown in the same experimental garden. Reprinted with permission from ref. 13 .

Comparison of the plants in any row shows how a given genotype gives rise to different phenotypes in different environments. Genetically identical plants (for example, those in the bottom row) may prosper or not, even die, depending on the environmental conditions. Plants from different altitudes are known to be genetically different. Hence, comparison of the plants in any column shows that in a given environment, different genotypes result in different phenotypes. An important inference derived from this experiment is that there is no single genotype that is best in all environments.

The interaction between the genotype and the environment is similarly significant, or even more so, in the case of animals. In one experiment, two strains of rats were selected over many generations; one strain for brightness at finding their way through a maze and the other for dullness ( Fig. 3 ; ref. 39 ). Selection was done in the bright strain by using the brightest rats of each generation to breed the following generation, and in the dull strain by breeding the dullest rats of every generation. After many generations of selection, the descendant bright rats made only about 120 errors running through the maze, whereas dull rats averaged 165 errors. That is a 40% difference. However, the differences between the strains disappeared when rats of both strains were raised in an unfavorable environment of severe deprivation, where both strains averaged 170 errors. The differences also nearly disappeared when the rats were raised with abundant food and other favorable conditions. In this optimal environment, the dull rats reduced their average number of errors from 165 to 120. As with the cinquefoil plants, we see ( i ) that a given genotype gives rise to different phenotypes in different environments and ( ii ) that the differences in phenotype between two genotypes change from one environment to another—the genotype that is best in one environment may not be best in another.

Results of an experiment with two strains of rats: one selected for brightness and the other for dullness. After many generations of selection, when raised in the same environment in which the selection was practiced (normal), bright rats made about 45 fewer errors than dull rats in the maze used for the tests. However, when the rats were raised in an impoverished (restricted) environment, bright and dull rats made the same number of errors. When raised in an abundant (stimulating) environment, the two strains performed nearly equally well. Reprinted with permission from ref. 13 .

Cloning Humans?

In the second half of the 20th century, as dramatic advances were taking place in genetic knowledge, as well as in the genetic technology often referred to as “genetic engineering,” some utopian proposals were advanced, at least as suggestions that should be explored and considered as possibilities, once the technologies had sufficiently progressed. Some proposals suggested that persons of great intellectual or artistic achievement or of great virtue be cloned. If this was accomplished in large numbers, the genetic constitution of mankind would, it was argued, considerably improve.

Such utopian proposals are grossly misguided. It should be apparent that, as stated above, it is not possible to clone a human individual. Seeking to multiply great benefactors of humankind, such as persons of great intelligence or character, we might obtain the likes of Stalin, Hitler, or Bin Laden. As the Nobel Laureate geneticist George W. Beadle asserted many years ago: “Few of us would have advocated preferential multiplication of Hitler’s genes. Yet who can say that in a different cultural context Hitler might not have been one of the truly great leaders of men, or that Einstein might not have been a political villain” ( 8 ). There is no reason whatsoever to expect that the genomes of individuals with excellent attributes would, when cloned, produce individuals similarly endowed with virtue or intelligence. Identical genomes yield, in different environments, individuals who may be quite different. Environments cannot be reproduced, particularly several decades apart, which would be the case when the genotype of the persons selected because of their eminent achievement might be cloned.

Are there circumstances that would justify cloning a person, because he or she wants it? One might think of a couple unable to have children, or a man or woman who does not want to marry, or of two lesbian lovers who want to have a child with the genotype of one in an ovum of the other, or of other special cases that might come to mind ( 40 ). It must be, first, pointed out that the cloning technology has not yet been developed to an extent that would make possible to produce a healthy human individual by cloning. Second, and most important, the individual produced by cloning would be a very different person from the one whose genotype is cloned, as belabored above.

Ethical, social, and religious values will come into play when seeking to decide whether a person might be allowed to be cloned. Most people are likely to disapprove. Indeed, many countries have prohibited human cloning. In 2004, the issue of cloning was raised in several countries where legislatures were also considering whether research on embryonic stem cells should be supported or allowed. The Canadian Parliament on March 12, 2004 passed legislation permitting research with stem cells from embryos under specific conditions, but human cloning was banned, and the sale of sperm and payments to egg donors and surrogate mothers were prohibited. The French Parliament on July 9, 2004 adopted a new bioethics law that allows embryonic stem cell research but considers human cloning a “crime against the human species.” Reproductive cloning experiments would be punishable by up to 20 y in prison. Japan’s Cabinet Council for Science and Technology Policy voted on July 23, 2004 to adopt policy recommendations that would permit the limited cloning of human embryos for scientific research but not the cloning of individuals. On January 14, 2001, the British government amended the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act of 1990 by allowing embryo research on stem cells and allowing therapeutic cloning. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Act of 2008 explicitly prohibited reproductive cloning but allowed experimental stem cell research for treating diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease ( 41 , 42 ). On February 3, 2014, the House of Commons voted to legalize a gene therapy technique known as mitochondrial replacement, or three-person in vitro fertilization, in which mitochondria from a donor’s egg cell contribute to a couple’s embryo ( 43 ). In the United States, there are currently no federal laws that ban cloning completely ( 42 ). Thirteen states (Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, North Dakota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Virginia) ban reproductive cloning, and three states (Arizona, Maryland, and Missouri) prohibit use of public funds for research on reproductive cloning ( 44 ).

Therapeutic Cloning

Cloning of embryonic cells (stem cells) could have important health applications in organ transplantation, treating injured nerve cells, and otherwise. In addition to SCNT, the method discussed above for cloning individuals, another technique is available, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), although SCNT has proven to be much more effective and less costly. The objective is to obtain pluripotent stem cells that have the potential to differentiate in any of the three germ layers characteristic of humans and other animals: endoderm (lungs and interior lining of stomach and gastrointestinal tract), ectoderm (nervous systems and epidermal tissues), and mesoderm (muscle, blood, bone, and urogenital tissues). Stem cells, with more limited possibilities than pluripotent cells, can also be used for specific therapeutic purposes ( 45 ).

Stem cell therapy consists of cloning embryonic cells to obtain pluripotent or other stem cells that can be used in regenerative medicine, to treat or prevent all sorts of diseases, and for the transplantation of organs. At present, bone marrow transplantation is a widely used form of stem cell therapy; stem blood cells are used in the treatment of sickle cell anemia, a lethal disease when untreated, which is very common in places where malaria is rife because heterozygous individuals are protected against infection by Plasmodium falciparum , the agent of malignant malaria. One of the most promising applications of therapeutic cloning is the growth of organs for transplantation, using stem cells that have the genome of the organ recipient. Two major hurdles would be overcome. One is the possibility of immune rejection; the other is the availability of organs from suitable donors. Another regenerative medical application that might be anticipated is the therapeutic growth of nerve cells. There are hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout the world paralyzed from the neck down and confined for life to a wheelchair as a consequence of damage to the spinal cord below the neck, often as a consequence of a car accident or a fall, that interrupts the transmission of nerve activity from the brain to the rest of the body and vice versa. A small growth of nerve cells sufficient to heal the wound in the spinal cord would have enormous health consequences for the wounded persons and for society.

At present, the one gene therapy modification of the embryo that can be practiced is mitochondrial replacement (MR), legalized in the United Kingdom by the House of Commons on February 3, 2014 ( 43 ), as mentioned earlier. Mutations in the mitochondrial DNA of about 1 in 6,500 individuals account for a variety of severe and often fatal conditions, including blindness, muscular weakness, and heart failure ( 46 ). With MR, the embryo possesses nuclear DNA from the mother and father, as well as mtDNA from a donor female who has healthy mtDNA. However, MR remains technically challenging, with a low rate of success. One complicating issue is that mtDNA replacement is not 100% successful; disease-causing mutant mtDNA persists in the developing embryo and may account for eventual diseases due to heteroplasmy, at least in some tissues. A second issue of concern is that mtDNA disorders often appear late in life. It remains unknown whether the benefits of MR as currently practiced may persist in advanced age.

The author declares no conflict of interest.

This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences, “In the Light of Evolution IX: Clonal Reproduction: Alternatives to Sex,” held January 9–10, 2015, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, CA. The complete program and video recordings of most presentations are available on the NAS website at www.nasonline.org/ILE_IX_Clonal_Reproduction .

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

In biology, the activity of cloning creates a copy of some biological entity such as a gene, a cell, or perhaps an entire organism. This article discusses the biological, historical, and moral aspects of cloning mammals. The main area of concentration is the moral dimensions of reproductive cloning, specifically the use of cloning in order to procreate.

The article summarizes the different types of cloning, such as recombinant DNA/molecular cloning, therapeutic cloning, and reproductive cloning. It explores some classic stereotypes of human clones, and it illustrates how many of these stereotypes can be traced back to media portrayals about human cloning. After a brief history of the development of cloning technology, the article considers arguments for and against reproductive cloning.

One of the most predominate themes underlying arguments for reproductive cloning is an appeal to procreative liberty. Because cloning may provide the only way for some individuals to have a child that is genetically their own, a ban on cloning interferes with their reproductive autonomy.

Arguments against cloning appeal to concerns about a clone’s lack of genetic uniqueness and what may be implied because of this. Human cloning is of special interest. There are concerns that cloned humans would lack individuality, that they would be treated in undignified ways by their creators, or that they would be damaged by society’s expectations that they should be more like those from whom they were cloned. Because they would essentially be facsimiles of the original person, there is concern that the clones might possess less moral worth. The predominate theme underlying arguments against human cloning is that the cloned child would undergo some sort of physical, social, mental, or emotional harm. Because of these and other concerns, the United Nations and many countries have banned human cloning. An important philosophical issue is whether such a response against human cloning is warranted.

Table of Contents

• Recombinant DNA Technology / Molecular Cloning
• Therapeutic Cloning
• Reproductive Cloning
• Misconceptions About Cloning and Their Sources
• Cloning Mammals: A Brief History
• Reproductive Liberty: The Only Way to Have a Genetically Related Child
• Cloning and Savior Siblings
• Cloning In Order to “Replace” a Deceased Child
• The Resultant Loss of Therapeutic Cloning for Stem Cell Research and Treating Diseases
• The Right to an Open Future
• The Right to a Unique Genetic Identity
• Cloning is Wrong because it is “Playing God” or because it is “Unnatural”
• The Dangers of Cloning
• Cloning Entails the Creation of Designer Children, or it Turns Children into Commodities
• Cloning and the Ambiguity of Familial Roles
• References and Further Reading

1. Types of Cloning

A. recombinant dna technology / molecular cloning.

DNA/Molecular cloning has been in use by molecular biologists since the early 1960s. When scientists wish to replicate a specific gene to facilitate more thorough study, molecular cloning is implemented in order to generate multiple copies of the DNA fragment of interest. In this process, the specific DNA fragment is transferred from one organism into a self-replicating genetic element, e.g., a bacterial plasmid (Allison, 2007).

Because this kind of cloning does not result in the genesis of a human organism, it has no reproductive intent or goals, and it does not result in the creation and destruction of embryos, there is little to no contention regarding its use.

b. Therapeutic Cloning

Embryonic stem cells are derived from human embryos at approximately five days post-fertilization, in the blastocyst stage of development. Because of their plasticity, embryonic stem cells can be manipulated to become any cell in the human body, e.g., neural cells, retinal cells, liver cells, pancreatic cells, or heart cells. Many scientists hope that, with proper research and application, embryonic stem cells can be used to treat a wide variety of afflictions, e.g., tissue toxicity resulting from cancer therapy (National Cancer Institute, 1999) Alzheimer’s disease (Gearhart, 1998), Parkinson’s disease (Freed et al , 1999; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, 1999; Wager et al . 1999; Gearhart, 1998), diabetes (Voltarelli et al, 2007; Shapiro et al. , 2000), heart disease (Lumelsky, 2001; Zulewski, 2001), and limb paralysis (Kay and Henderson, 2001).

One current obstacle for the successful use of embryonic stem cells for disease therapy concerns immunological rejection. If a patient were to receive stem cell therapy in order to treat some affliction, her body may reject the stem cells for the same reason human bodies have a tendency to reject donated organs: the body tends to not recognize, and therefore reject, foreign cells. One way to overcome stem cell rejection is by creating embryos through somatic cell nuclear transfer with the patient’s own DNA. In 2008, a California research team succeeded in creating embryos via SCNT and growing them to the blastocyst stage (French et al. , 2008). In SCNT, an ovum is emptied of its own nucleus, its DNA, and the chromosomal DNA from another person (in the case, a patient’s) is inserted. The ovum is then artificially induced to begin dividing as if it had been naturally fertilized (usually via the use of an electrical current). Once the embryo is approximately five days old, the stem cells are removed, cultured, differentiated to the desired type of body cell, and inserted back into the patient (the genetic donor in this case). Since the embryo was a genetic duplicate of the patient, there would be no immunological rejection. One use of this technology, for example, is to help treat individuals in the aftermath of a heart attack. Using SCNT to create a genetically identical blastocyst, new healthy cells could be derived and inserted back into the genetic donor’s heart in order to replace the damaged cardiac cells (Strauer, 2009).

It may also be possible to use therapeutic cloning to repair defective genes by homologous recombination (Doetschman et al. , 1987). Cellular models of diseases can be developed as well, along with the ability to test drug efficacy: “cloning a single skin cell from a patient with a disease could be used to produce inexhaustible amounts of cells and tissue with that disease. The tissue could be experimented upon to understand why disease occurs. It could be used to understand the genetic contribution to disease and to test vast arrays of new drugs which could not be tested in human people” (Savulescu, 2007, 1-2). Pluripotent stem cells can also be used to test drug toxicity which could also diminish the chances of drug-related birth defects (Boiani and Schöler, 2002, 124).

Therapeutic cloning is controversial because isolating the stem cells from the embryo destroys it. Many individuals regard the human embryo as a person with moral rights , and so they consider its destruction to be morally impermissible. Moreover, because the embryos are created with the explicit intention to destroy them, there are concerns that this treats the embryos in a purely instrumental manner (Annas et al., , 1996). Although some ethicists are in favor of using surplus embryos from fertility treatments for research (since the embryos were slated for destruction in any case), they are simultaneously against creating embryos solely for research due to the concern that doing so treats the embryos purely as means (Outka, 2002; Peters, 2001). Indeed, it is precisely because of these ethical issues that some individuals object to the positive connotations of the term “therapeutic” and refer to this work, instead, as “research cloning.” The term “therapeutic cloning” is, however, more widely used.

c. Reproductive Cloning

SCNT can also be used for reproductive purposes. Unlike therapeutic cloning, the cloned embryo is transferred into a uterus of a female of the same species and would be, upon successful implantation, allowed to gestate as a naturally fertilized egg would. The cloned embryo would possess identical chromosomal DNA as its genetic predecessor, but, because of the use of a different ovum, its mitochondrial DNA (the genetic material inhabiting the cytoplasm of the enucleated ovum) would differ, and, consequently, it would not be 100% genetically identical (unlike monozygotic multiples who, because they are derived from the same ovum, share identical chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA). In addition to its slight genetic difference, the cloned embryo would likely be gestated in a different uterine environment, which can also have an effect in ways that may serve to distinguish it from its genetic predecessor. For example, a cloned entity’s phenotype (its appearance) may look very different than that of its genetic predecessor because the embryo can undergo epigenetic reprogramming, where nongenetic (i.e., environmental) causes influence genes to manifest themselves differently. The result is that the genes behave in ways that may lead to a difference in appearance.

In addition to somatic cell nuclear transfer, there is another, less controversial and less technologically complex, manner of reproductive cloning: artificial embryo twinning. Here, an embryo is created in a Petri dish via In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). The embryo is then induced to divide into genetic copies of itself, thereby artificially mimicking what happens when monozygotic multiples are formed (Illmensee et al. , 2009). The embryos are then transferred into a womb and, upon successful implantation and gestation, are born as identical multiples. If implantation is unsuccessful, the process is repeated.

One argument in favor of artificial embryo twinning is that it provides an infertile couple, who may not have been able to produce many viable embryos through IVF, with more embryos that they can then implant for an increased chance at successful reproduction (Robertson, 1994). Because some of the embryos may be saved and implanted later, it is possible to create identical multiples who are not born at the same time. One advantage to doing this is that the later born twin could serve as a blood or bone marrow donor for her older sibling should the need arise; because they are genetically identical, the match would be guaranteed (the converse could also hold, that is, the older individual could serve as a donor for the clone should the latter ever need it. The existence of a cloned person, therefore, could be mutually beneficial, rather than asymmetrical). However, some concerns have been raised. For example, it has been argued that artificially dividing the embryo constitutes an immoral manipulation of it and that, as much as possible, a unique embryo should be allowed to develop without interference (McCormick, 1994). Concerns over individuality have also been raised; whereas naturally occurring twins are valued as individuals, one worry is that embryos created through artificial twinning, precisely because of the synthetic nature of their genesis, may not be as valued (McCormick, 1994).

2. Misconceptions About Cloning and Their Sources

The general public still seems to regard human reproductive cloning as something that can occur only in the realm of science fiction. The portrayal of cloning in movies, television, and even in journalism has spanned from comedic to dangerous. Human clones have often been depicted in movies as nothing but carbon copies of their genetic predecessor with no minds of their own (e.g., Multiplicity and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ), as products of scientific experiments that have gone horribly wrong, resulting in deformed quasi-humans ( Alien Resurrection ) or murderous children ( Godsend ), as persons created simply for spare parts for their respective genetic predecessor ( The Island ), or as deliberate recreations of famous persons from the past who are expected to act just like their respective predecessor ( The Boys from Brazil ). Even when depicting nonhuman cloning, films (such as Jurassic Park ) tend to portray products of cloning as menacing, modern-day Frankensteinian monsters of sorts, which serve to teach humans a lesson about the dangers of “playing God.”

Many other media outlets, although usually shying away from the ominous representation of clones so prevalent in the movies, have usually portrayed clones as, essentially, facsimiles of their genetic predecessor. On the several occasions which Time Magazine has addressed the issue of cloning, the cover illustrates duplicate instances of the same picture. For example, the February 19, 2001 cover shows two mirror image infants staring at each other, the tagline suggesting that cloning may be used by grieving parents who wish to resurrect their dead child. Even a Discovery Channel program, meant to educate its viewers on the nature of cloning, initially portrays a clone as nothing more than a duplicate of the original person. Interestingly enough, however, a few minutes into the program, the narrator, speaking over a picture of two identical cows, says: “But even if a clone person is created, that doesn’t mean it would be an exact copy of the original.” Yet almost immediately afterwards, the same narrator calls a clone “You, version 2.0.”

As philosopher Patrick Hopkins has pointed out, media conceptions about what human cloning entails, and the type of offspring that will arise from cloning, employ the tacit premise that clones are nothing but copies. The predominate belief that fuels this conception is that genetic determinism is true, i.e., that a person’s genes are the sole determining factor of her behavior and physical appearance; essentially, that a person’s identity is solely determined by her genetic constitution. If a person were to believe that genetic determinism is true, then it follows that she believes that a cloned person would be psychologically identical with her genetic predecessor because they are (almost) genetically identical. Hopkins also points out that, like the narrator in the Discovery Channel program, many media outlets “engage in confusing, contradictory bits of double-talk (or double-show). The images and not-very-clever headlines all convey unsettling messages that clones will be exact copies, while inside the stories go to some effort to educate us that clones will not in fact be exact copies” (1998, 129-130).

3. Cloning Mammals: A Brief History

In 1894, Hans Driesch cloned a sea urchin through inducing twinning by shaking an embryonic sea urchin in a beaker full of sea water until the embryo cleaved into two distinct embryos. In 1902, Hans Spemann cloned a salamander embryo through inducing twinning as well, using a hair from his infant son as a noose to divide the embryo.  In 1928, Spemann successfully cloned a salamander using nuclear transfer. This involved enucleating a single-celled salamander embryo and inserting it with the nucleus of a differentiated salamander embryonic cell.  In 1951, Robert Briggs and Thomas Kling, using Spemann’s methods of embryonic nucleus transfer, successfully cloned frogs. In 1962, John Gurdon announced that he too had successfully cloned frogs but, unlike Briggs and Kling’s method, he did so by transferring differentiated intestinal nuclei from feeding tadpoles (Wilmut et al. , 2000). Gurdon’s successful use of differentiated nuclei, rather than the embryonic nuclei used by Briggs and Kling, was particularly surprising to the scientific community. Because embryonic cells are undifferentiated, and therefore extremely malleable, it was not too surprising that transferred embryonic nuclei produced distinct embryos when inserted into an enucleated oocyte. However, inciting differentiated nuclei to behave as undifferentiated nuclei was thought to be impossible, since the conventional wisdom at the time was that once a cell was differentiated (e.g., once it became a cardiac cell, a liver cell, or a blood cell) it could never reverse into an undifferentiated state. It was for this reason that, for a long time, creating a cloned embryo from adult somatic cells was thought to be impossible – it would require taking long-time differentiated cells and getting them to behave like the totipotent cells (cells that are able to differentiate into any cell type, including the ability to form an entirely distinct organism) found in newly fertilized eggs.

In 1995, Dr. Ian Wilmut and Dr. Keith Campbell successfully cloned two mountain sheep, Megan and Morag, from embryonic sheep cells. One year later, in 1996, Wilmut and Campbell successfully cloned the first mammal to be born from an adult somatic cell, specifically an udder cell (a sheep’s mammary gland): Dolly the sheep (Wilmut et al. , 1997). In other words, Wilmut and Campbell were able to take a fully differentiated adult cell and revert it back to an undifferentiated, totipotent, state. This was the first time the process had been accomplished for mammalian reproduction. Furthermore, they were able to create a viable pregnancy and produce from it a healthy lamb (however, there were 276 failed attempts before Dolly was created, which, as it will be discussed below, creates concerns over the safety and efficacy of the procedure). Dolly the sheep died in 2003 after having been euthanized due to her suffering from pulmonary adenomatosis, a disease fairly common in sheep that are kept indoors; indeed, many members of Dolly’s flock had succumbed to the same disease. Additionally, she suffered from arthritis. Before she died, she produced six healthy lambs through natural reproduction. Since Dolly, many more mammals have been cloned through the use of SCNT. Some examples are deer, ferrets (Li et al. , 2006), mules (Lovgren, 2003), other sheep, goats, cows, mice, pigs, rabbits, a gaur, dogs, and cats. One possible use of reproductive cloning technology is to help save endangered species (Lanza et al. , 2000). In 2005, two endangered gray wolves were cloned in Korea (Oh et al., 2008).

The successful cloning of household pets holds special significance in that, when discussing the circumstances that led to their cloning, we can begin to discuss the ethical issues that arise in human reproductive cloning. In 2001, the first feline created via somatic cell nuclear transfer was born. She was named CC, short for “Copy Cat,” and was born at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University. The research that led to her creation was funded by the California based company “Genetic Savings and Clone,” who, between 2004 and 2006, offered grieving pet owners a chance to clone their sick or deceased pets (they closed their doors in 2006 due to the unsustainability of their business). What is most striking about CC is not simply her mere existence, but also that CC does not look nor act like her feline progenitor, Rainbow. Whereas Rainbow, a calico, is stocky and has patches of tan, orange, and white throughout her body, CC barely resembles a calico at all. Not only is she lanky and thin, she has a grey coat over a white body and is lacking the patches of orange or tan typical to calicos. There are personality differences between Rainbow and CC as well; whereas Rainbow is described as a shy, reticent, and a more “hands-off” kind of cat, CC is described as more playful, inquisitive, and affectionate (Hays, 2003).

“Genetic Savings and Clone” was founded by Lou Hawthorne, who was seeking a means to clone his family’s beloved dog Missy. Although Missy died before she was successfully cloned, Hawthorne banked her DNA in the hopes of ultimately succeeding in this endeavor. In 2004, a Texas woman paid $50,000 to clone her deceased Maine Coone Nicky and, as a result, Little Nicky, the world’s first commercially cloned cat, was born.  This was followed, in 2005, by the birth of Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog. In 2007, three clones from Missy’s DNA were created and returned to the Hawthorne family. All this has incited some pet owners to pay large sums of money to clone their beloved deceased pets. Alan and Kristine Wolf paid thousands of dollars to have their deceased cat, Spot, cloned from skin cells they had preserved. According to the Wolfs, preserving Spot’s skin cells, in their mind, was almost equivalent to having Spot himself preserved. In other words, the Wolfs (and the woman who cloned Nicky) were willing to spend an exorbitant amount of money to clone their pets not just in order to receive another pet, but to, rather, receive what was, in their eyes, the same pet that they had lost (Masterson, 2010).

This allows us to begin exploring the ethical issues in the reproductive cloning debate. Some questions that arise are: Why did these individuals regard the recreation of the same DNA to equate to the recreation of the same entity that had died? Will these expectations transfer over to human cloning, where people will regard cloned children as the same individuals as their genetic predecessors, and therefore treat them with this expectation in mind? Will cloning, thus, compromise a child’s identity? Are such concerns grave enough to permanently ban reproductive cloning altogether?

4. Arguments in Favor of Reproductive Cloning and Responses

A. reproductive liberty: the only way to have a genetically related child.

The Argument.

Procreative liberty is a right well established in Western political culture (Dworkin, 1994). However, not everyone is physically capable of procreating through traditional modes of conception. Cloning may be the only way for an otherwise infertile couple to have a genetically related child. Therefore, providing cloning as an option contributes to a greater scope of procreative liberty (Häyry, 2003; Harris, 2004; Robertson, 1998). For example, a couple may be able to generate only a few embryos from IVF procedures; cloning via artificially induced twinning would increase the number of embryos to a quantity that is more likely to result in a live birth. In another case, the male partner in a relationship may be unable to produce viable sperm and, instead of seeking a sperm donor, the couple can choose to use SCNT in order to produce a genetic copy of the prospective father. Since the prospective mother would use her own ova, they would both contribute genetically to the child (albeit with a different proportion than a couple who conceived using gamete cells).  In yet another example, neither parent may have usable gametes, so they employ a donor ovum, clone one of the two parents, and gestate the fetus in the female’s uterus. Or, perhaps one of the prospective parents is predisposed to certain genetic disorders and, in order to completely avoid their offspring inheriting these disorders, they decide to clone the other prospective parent. A single woman may want to have a baby, and would rather clone herself instead of using donated sperm. Also, cloning may give homosexual couples the opportunity to have genetically related children (this is especially true for homosexual women where one partner provides the mitochondrial DNA and the other partner provides the chromosomal DNA). These are a few examples of how cloning may provide a genetically related child to a person otherwise unable to have one. Because cloning may be the only way some people can procreate, to deny cloning to these people would be a violation of procreative liberty (Robertson, 2006).

Response 1: Negative vs. positive right to procreate.

One response is to distinguish between a positive right to procreate and a negative right to procreate (Pearson, 2007), and argue that reproductive liberty can be fully respected in the latter sense, and only conditionally respected in the former sense. This conditional respect may support the permissibility of prohibiting human cloning for reproductive purposes.

A negative right to x means that no one has the prima facie right to interfere in your request to fulfill x.  If you possess a negative right to x, this entails only one obligation on the behalf of others: the obligation to not obstruct your obtainment of x. For example, if I have a negative right to life, what this entails is that others have an obligation to not kill me, since this obstructs or hinders my right. Another way to regard it is that a negative right only requires passive obligations (the obligation to not do something or to refrain from acting).

A positive right requires more from obligation-bearers; it requires that active steps be taken in order to provide the right-bearers with the means to fulfill that right. If I have a positive right to life, for instance, it is not just that others have an obligation to not kill me; they have a further obligation to provide me with any services that I would need to ensure my survival. That is, the obligation becomes an active one as well as a passive one: an obligation to not destroy my life and also to provide services that enable me to preserve my life.

Keeping this distinction in mind, it is possible to deny that the right to reproduce is a positive right in the first place. That is, while we ought not to prevent anyone from procreating, we are not required to provide them with any technology whatsoever in order to enable them to procreate if they cannot do so by their own means. Hence, limiting access to certain types of assisted reproductive technologies to an otherwise infertile couple would not necessarily infringe on their (negative) right to procreate (Courtwright and Doron, 2007). Some have argued the opposing side, however, and have maintained that respect for procreative liberty not only entails access to artificial reproductive technology, but also the right to employ gamete donors and surrogate mothers (Ethics Committee of the American Fertility Society, 1985).

Response 2: Procreative liberty is not categorical.

Another possible response is to stress that, even if there is a positive right to procreate, the right is a prima facie , rather than a categorical, one and it is not the case that any step taken to combat infertility is in itself ethical (McCormick, 1993).  Therefore, determining what types of services can be offered to infertile couples must be tempered with certain considerations, e.g., the safety of the offspring born as a result of these services must be taken into account. If a particular type of reproductive technology poses a health risk to the resulting children, this is grounds enough to prevent the use of that technology (Cohen, 1996). In other words, even granting that individuals have a positive right to procreate, it does not follow from this alone that they should be provided with any means necessary for successful procreation. They may not be entitled to the use of a certain technological advancement (e.g., SCNT) if that advancement is deemed to pose a danger to the resulting offspring. Robertson concedes this objection, but he responds that “if a ban on cloning is justified, then a ban on many other forms of assisted reproduction and genetic selection should be as well, yet few persons are prepared to go that far” (2006, 206).  That is, in order for advocates of this objection to be consistent, they should be equally willing to ban other forms of reproductive technology that may result in harm to potential offspring.

b. Cloning and Savior Siblings

The concept of a “savior sibling,” a child that is deliberately conceived so that she could provide a means (through the donation of bodily fluids, umbilical cord blood, a non-vital organ, or tissue) to save an older sibling from illness or death is not new. What is new is that cloning would ensure that the new child is an appropriate match for the existing ailing person, since they would be genetically identical. Permitting cloning, therefore, would allow for a more expedient means of creating a savior sibling, since the alternatives (using preimplantation genetic diagnosis to screen embryos to determine which are genetically compatible with the sibling, implanting into a womb only the ones that are a match and discarding the others, or creating an embryo through natural reproduction and terminating the pregnancy if it is not a genetic match) are more involved and more time consuming. Of course, the rights of the new child would have to be respected; tissue, organs, or bodily fluids should only be removed given her consent (although this would not apply to umbilical cord blood banking, since the infant lacks the capacity for giving consent) (Robertson, 2006).

Response: Violating Kant’s formula of humanity.

Such a prospect raises concerns that cloning would facilitate viewing the resulting children as objects of manufacture, rather than as individuals with value and dignity of their own. The prospect of creating a child, solely to meet the needs of another child and not for her own sake, reduces the created child to a mere means to achieve the ends of the parents and the sick child. While it is admirable that the parents wish to save their existing child, it is not ethically permissible to create another child solely as an instrument to save the life of her sibling (Quintavalle, 2001).

Another way of explaining it is that creating a child solely for the purposes of providing life-saving aid for another child violates Immanuel Kant’s second principle formulation of the categorical imperative. Kant proscribes treating persons as a mere means, rather than as ends in themselves, maintaining that persons should “act in such a way that [humanity is treated] always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means” (1981, 36). Creating a child for the sole purpose of saving another child violates the formula of humanity because the child is created specifically for this end.

It should be noted, however, that such an objection would apply to any method that is used to create a child for similar reasons, including any other type of reproductive technology or even natural procreation. It is the intention with which a child is created that is in question here, not the method that is used in order to create the child. Another response is that Kant’s dictum is misapplied. A child who is created as a “savior sibling” may still, also, be loved and respected as an individual in her own right, and therefore may not necessarily be treated solely as a means (Boyle and Savulescu, 2001).

c. Cloning In Order to “Replace” a Deceased Child

In his article “Even If It Worked, Cloning Won’t Bring Her Back”, ethicist Thomas Murray recounts a letter he heard read at a congressional hearing regarding human reproductive cloning. A chemist, who was presenting her views in support of reproductive cloning, read a letter by a father grieving the death of his infant son. Murray recounts as follows:

Eleven days ago, as I awaited my turn to testify at a congressional hearing on human reproductive cloning, one of five scientists on the witness list took the microphone. Brigitte Boisselier, a chemist working with couples who want to use cloning techniques to create babies, read aloud a letter from “a father (Dada).” The writer, who had unexpectedly become a parent in his late thirties, describes his despair over his 11-month-old son’s death after heart surgery and 17 days of “misery and struggle.” The room was quiet as Boisselier read the man’s words: “I decided then and there that I would never give up on my child. I would never stop until I could give his DNA – his genetic make-up – a chance” (2001).

Depriving grieving parents of this unique opportunity, the only opportunity “to get back the child that they lost,” would be morally wrong. Cloning would provide such an opportunity to grieving parents.

Response 1: Assuming genetic determinism.

Like many of the arguments against reproductive cloning listed below, this argument in favor of cloning, despite its emotional appeal, erroneously assumes that genetic determinism is true. The grieving father’s letter maintained that he would never “give up on my child ”, and that the way he would achieve this is to “give his DNA – his genetic make-up – a chance.” In other words, the father equated his son as an individual person to his genetic make-up; because he could recreate his son’s genes, he could recreate his son as a person. The tacit implication here is that cloning is desirable because it somehow presents a way to cheat death. It is through cloning that his son could be, in some sense, resurrected.

Given that individuals have sought to clone their deceased pets, the idea that grieving parents would seek to clone a deceased child is not far-fetched. Thomas Murray continues his article by disclosing that he too is a grieving father, having suffered the death of his twenty-year-old daughter who was abducted from her college campus and shot. Yet cloning, Murray continues, “can neither change the fact of death nor deflect the pain of grief” (2001). Murray goes on to stress that, due to varying other influences outside of genetic duplication, a clone would not, in fact, be a mere copy of its genetic predecessor. One interesting point is that both detractors of cloning (e.g., Kass and Callahan, whose views are explored below) and supporters of cloning (like the researcher that read this letter at the congressional hearing) find convergence in committing the same fallacy. Both assume that cloning recreates identity, and they differ only as to the desirability of that consequence. Yet, given that we have evidence that the robust form of genetic determinism these arguments assume is false (Resnik and Vorhaus, 2006; Elliot, 1998), both detractors and supporters of cloning who rely on it produce faulty arguments.

Response 2: A child is not replaceable.

Given the evidence that genetic determinism is false, Murray further stresses that using cloning as a method of replacing a dead child “is unfair. No child should have to bear the oppressive expectation that he or she will live out the life denied to his or her idealized genetic avatar…. Cloning a child to be a reincarnation of someone else is a grotesque, fun-house mirror distortion of parental expectations” (2001). Dan Brock further supports the contention that cloning in order to replace a deceased child is misguided (Brock, 1997). Moreover, because parents have cloned this child with the expressed purpose of replacing a deceased child, the expectations that the new child will be just like the deceased one would be overwhelming and impede the child’s ability to develop her own individuality (Levick, 2004). It should be stressed, however, that this response targets a particular use of cloning (one based on faulty assumptions), not the actual cloning procedure.

d. The Resultant Loss of Therapeutic Cloning for Stem Cell Research and Treating Diseases

Although SCNT is used to create embryos for therapeutic cloning, there is no intent to implant them in order to create children. Rather, the intent is to use the cells of the embryo in order to further research that may ultimately lead to treatments or cures for certain afflictions. Therefore, a categorical ban on SCNT affects not just the prospect of reproductive cloning, but also the research that could be done with cloned embryos. At the very least, the argument concludes, SCNT should be allowed for research and therapeutic purposes (Devolder and Savulescu, 2006; American Medical Association, 2003; Maas, 2001). This was the position presented by Senator Arlen Specter in his proposed Senate Bill 2439, called the “Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2002:  A Bill to Prohibit Human [Reproductive] Cloning While Preserving Important Areas of Medical Research, Including Stem Cell Research.”

Response 1: Therapeutic cloning leads to reproductive cloning.

The first response maintains that, because therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning both implement SCNT, allowing the procedure to be perfected for therapeutic cloning makes it more likely that it will later be used for reproductive purposes (Rifkin, 2002; Kass, 1998)

Response 2: Embryo experimentation is unethical.

The second response applies not just to therapeutic cloning, but to any type of embryo experimentation. From the time that an ovum is fertilized and syngamy (the fusion of two gametes to form a new and distinct genetic code) has successfully taken place, there exists a subject, the embryo, which is a bearer of dignity, moral status, and moral rights. It is unethical to experiment on an embryo for the same reason it is unethical to experiment on any human being and since embryo experimentation often results in the destruction of the embryo, this equates to murdering the embryo (Deckers, 2007; Oduncu, 2003; Novak, 2001). Typically, those who offer the second response (e.g., the Catholic Church) regard the human embryo as a complete moral subject upon conception (Pope John Paul II, 1995; Pope Paul VI, 1968), and therefore any experiment that harms them or destroys them is morally tantamount to any experiment that would destroy a person.

5. Arguments Against Reproductive Cloning and Responses

A. the right to an open future.

According to some ethicists who oppose human cloning, a cloned child’s identity and individuality will be compromised given that she will be “saddled with a genotype that has already lived” (Kass, 1998, 56; see also Annas, 1998 and Kitcher, 1997). Because of the expectations that the cloned child will re-live the life of her genetic predecessor, the child would necessarily be deprived of her right to an open future. Because all children deserve to have a life and a future that is completely open to them in terms of its prospects (Feinberg, 1980), and because being the product of cloning would necessarily deprive the resulting child of these prospects, cloning is seriously immoral. In a sense, this objection maintains that a cloned child would either lack the free will to live her life according to her own desire and goals or that, at the very least, her free will would be severely restricted by her parents or the society that has certain expectations of her given her genetic lineage. The child would be destined to live in the shadows of her genetic predecessor (Holm, 1998).

Response 1: Faulting cloning for the misconceptions of others.

This argument is unsuccessful in illustrating that there is something intrinsically morally wrong with cloning. The subject of this objection is not cloning itself, but rather the erroneous attitude that parents will have in regard to their cloned child. The child’s very desire to be different from her predecessor illustrates that she is not destined to be like her predecessor. Once prospective parents, and society in general, come to understand that cloned children will possess just as much individuality as any other person, it is possible that these fears, and the attempts to control the child’s future, will largely abate (Wachbroit, 1997). Additionally, if the reason people treat cloned children unfavorably is due to their misconceptions about cloning, then the proper response is not to ban cloning at the expense of compromising procreative liberty, but rather work to rectify these prejudices and misconceptions (Burley and Harris, 1999).

Moreover, it is not just parents of cloned children that may be guilty of violating the child’s right to an open future;  many parents are, to varying degrees of severity, already guilty of violating such a right with their naturally created children, and often times those attempts are subject to failure (see Agar, 2004, 106 for such an example). If such parents are not deprived of their opportunity to have children out of concern that they will violate their child’s right to an open future, then we seem hard pressed to find a reason to deprive couples who would turn to cloning for reproductive purposes of a similar opportunity.

Response 2: Assuming genetic determinism (again).

At its core, however, this objection assumes the very controversial thesis that either a person’s genes play an almost fatalistic role in her life decisions, or that individuals in society will assume some robust version of genetic determinism to be true and will treat cloned children according to that assumption. As abovementioned, there is much evidence to suggest that genetic determinism is not true. In their article “Genetic Modification and Genetic Determinism,” David Resnik and Daniel Vorhaus state that, when it comes to genetic modification, “even if a desired trait is successfully expressed it may not actually restrict options for the child… the open future critique paints with a far broader brush, alleging that the act of modification per se impacts the child’s right to an open future. And it is this claim that we reject…” (2006, 9). The same can be said about cloning (Pence, 1998 and 2008; Wachbroit, 1997). Even if a cloned child did display certain behavioral traits belonging to her genetic predecessor, it is unclear whether the similarity in traits entails that a child’s future would be closed off. Moreover, there is much evidence that, usually, the general public rejects genetic determinism (Hopkins, 1998).

There is evidence, however, that some would regard cloning as a method for resuscitating the dead (the grieving father in Murray’s article attests to this, as well as the individuals who are willing to pay thousands of dollars in order to clone a deceased pet). This supports Kass’ claim that many people may expect a cloned child to be like her genetic predecessor. However, this misconception may quickly be rectified simply by observing the unique personality of the cloned child, especially since her experiences and her nurture, removed by at least a generation, will be substantially different than that of her genetic predecessor (Dawkins, 1998; Pence, 1998).

b. The Right to a Unique Genetic Identity

Because cloning entails recreating an existing person’s genetic code (with the exception of the difference in mitochondrial DNA), some argue that cloning would, necessarily, entail a violation of the cloned child’s right to a distinctive genetic identity (European Parliament, 1998). According to this objection, our DNA is what endows each human being with uniqueness and dignity (Callahan, 1993). Because cloning recreates a pre-existing DNA sequence, the cloned child would be denied that uniqueness and, therefore, her dignity would be compromised. This objection appears to be an incarnation of the objection from the Right to an Open Future. Certainly the concerns are similar: that a cloned child would be deprived of her own individual identity because of her genetic origins. However, whereas in the objection from the Right to an Open Future, the cloned child is deprived of individuality based on the perception of others (and, as is developed above, this does not seem to really be an objection to the practice of cloning simpliciter ), this objection indicates that there is something inherently individuality-compromising, and therefore dignity-compromising, in recreating an existing genetic code. If this objection is successful, if recreating a pre-existing genetic code is intrinsically morally objectionable, then it would seem to present an objection to the actual cloning process.

Response 1: Genetic duplication and identical multiples.

Callahan argues that there is something intrinsically identity-depriving, and therefore dignity-depriving, in duplicating a genetic code. However, there is much evidence to counter this claim. As abovementioned, CC the cat neither looks nor acts like Rainbow, her genetic predecessor. However, the strongest evidence against this claim is the existence of identical multiples, who are, in essence, clones of nature (Pence, 2004; Gould, 1997). No one claims that identical multiples’ right to a unique genetic identity was compromised simply in virtue of their creation, which calls into question whether such a right exists in the first place (Silver, 1998; Tooley, 1998; Rhodes, 1995). If Callahan’s concerns were accurate, identical multiples would fail to be individuals in their own right, and, consequently, be harmed because of this. However, there is no evidence that identical multiples feel this way, and there does not seem to be anything inherent about sharing a genetic code that compromises individuality (Elliot, 1998). The fact that identical multiples do not seem harmed or deprived of individuality merely by virtue of not possessing a unique genetic code is evidence that Callahan’s concern against cloning in this regard is misguided.

Response 2: Forgetting nurture.

Lastly, proponents of this objection ignore the very important role that nurture has in shaping a person’s identity. A cloned child would be gestated in a different uterine environment. She would be born into either the same family, but with a different dynamic, as her genetic predecessor, or be born into a different family altogether. She would also likely be raised in a much different society (e.g., a child born in 2010 would have vastly different social influences than a child born in the 1960s or 1970s). She would have different friends, attend different schools, play different games, watch different television shows, listen to different music. The generational and historical differences between a clone and her genetic predecessor would undoubtedly go a long way when it comes to shaping the personality of the former (Pence, 1998; Dawkins, 1998; Harris, 1997; Bor, 1997).

What forms or shapes each person’s individual identity is an intricate interaction of genetics and nurture (Ridley, 2003). While being genetically identical to a pre-existing person will most likely result in some similarities, it will certainly not be strong enough to deprive a cloned child of her individuality or dignity.  A cloned child’s future would remain open, and there is no evidence that she is denied something irreplaceably unique by not having a unique genetic code. Moreover, concerns that genetic duplication compromises dignity overemphasize the role that genetics has as the source of human dignity. Human dignity, some philosophers have argued, has its source in virtue of our being persons and autonomous rational beings. Since, presumably, a clone would still be a person and an autonomous rational being, a clone would certainly retain her human dignity (Glannon, 2005; Elliot, 1998).

c. Cloning is Wrong because it is “Playing God” or because it is “Unnatural”

Another common concern is that cloning is morally wrong because it oversteps the boundaries of humans’ role in scientific research and development. These boundaries are set by either God (and therefore cloning is wrong because it is “playing God”) or nature (and therefore cloning is wrong because it is “unnatural”). Any method of procreation that does not implement traditional modes of conception, i.e., not involving the union of sperm and ova, is guilty of one (or both) of these infractions (Goodman, 2008; Tierney, 2007).  Moreover, advocates of this objection caution against removing God from the process of creation altogether, which, it is argued, is what reproductive cloning achieves (Rikfin, 2000).

Response 1: Clarifying the meaning of “playing God.”

Advocates of the “playing God” objection have the onus to define exactly what “playing God” means. One possible definition of “playing God” is that anything that interferes with nature, or the natural progression of life, interferes with God’s plan for humanity, and is therefore morally wrong. But this is too vague; humans constantly interfere with nature in ways that are not morally criticized. Almost all instances of medical advancements in the past 100 years (e.g., vaccines against diseases, respirators, incubators for preterm infants, pacemakers, etc.) interfere with nature in the sense that they prevent otherwise harmful or fatal afflictions from taking their toll on a human body. Would the same advocates of this objection against cloning object to artificial insulin injections to treat diabetes? (Glannon, 2005). To be more extreme, almost everything humans engage in, from wearing clothing, to using phones and computers, to indoor plumbing, all, in some sense, interfere with some aspect of nature.

Perhaps the more charitable understanding is that “playing God” is morally wrong when it comes to cloning because it is a process that artificially creates life, outside of the practice of sexual intercourse (Meilaender, 1997). Adhering to this definition of “playing God”, however, would condemn any form of artificial reproductive technology, as well as cloning, e.g., IVF, artificial insemination, or intrauterine insemination. In addition, anything that thwarts the natural process of conception (i.e., birth control) may also be morally condemned.  In the “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation,” the Catholic Church denounces all forms of reproductive technology on the grounds that reproductive creation is strictly God’s domain (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987). However, most people who denounce human cloning on the grounds that it “plays God” do not denounce other forms of artificial reproduction on similar grounds.

Response 2: Knowing God’s will.

Yet another response is that this objection purports to know what God’s will is in regards to technological advancements such as cloning. However, since key religious texts (e.g., The Bible, The Torah, or the Qu’ran) make no mention of such advancements, it is presumably impossible to determine what God would have to say about them. In other words, inferences about God’s will on such matters are tenuous because we have little basis from which to draw these purported moral inferences (Pence, 2008).

Response 3: Biologism Fallacy.

One response to the “unnatural” objection is similar to the first response to the “playing God” objection; most everything humans do, from medicine to modern forms of sanitation, are “unnatural”, and most are not considered morally objectionable as a consequence. A second response is that such an objection commits what philosopher Daniel Maguire calls the “Biologism Fallacy”: “the fallacious effort to wring a moral mandate out of raw biological facts” (1983, 148). In other words, “unnatural” is not synonymous with “immoral” (and conversely, “natural” is not synonymous with “moral”). While it is true that cloning (along with other types of reproductive technologies) is not the “natural” way of conceiving a child, this alone does not render cloning immoral.

d. The Dangers of Cloning

Many philosophers and ethicists who would otherwise support reproductive cloning concede that concern for the safety of children born via cloning is reason to caution against its use (Harris, 2004; Glannon, 2005).  The claim is that a cloned child would be in danger of suffering from severe genetic defects as a result of being a clone, or that cloning would result in a high number of severely defective embryos before one healthy human embryo is developed. Ian Wilmut, Dolly’s creator, has denounced human reproductive cloning as too dangerous to attempt (Travis, 2001). According to Wilmut, “Dolly was derived from 277 embryos, so the other 276 didn’t make it. The previous year’s work, which led to the birth and survival of Megan and Morag, used more than 200 embryos. We have success rates of roughly one in a hundred or less” (Klotzko, 1998, 134). Even if a clone were to appear healthy at birth, there are concerns about health problems arising later in life. For example, while there is no evidence that Dolly’s respiratory issues were due to her being a clone, questions remain whether her arthritis, which is uncommon among sheep her age, could have resulted because of the nature of her genesis (Williams, 2003). Even attempting to perfect human reproductive cloning would entail a trial and error approach that would lead to the destruction of many embryos, and may produce severely disabled children before a healthy one is born.

Response 1: The nonidentity problem.

One response typically given by philosophers when concerning the ethics of preconception decisions that may lead to the birth of a disabled child involves an appeal to Derek Parfit’s nonidentity problem (Parfit, 1984, though Parfit himself does not apply this to cloning). Applied to preconception choices, Parfit’s argument can be applied as follows. Suppose I desire to get pregnant, but am currently suffering from a physical ailment that would result in conceiving and birthing an infant with developmental impairments. Yet, if I were to wait two months, my ailment would pass and I would conceive a perfectly healthy baby. Most people would agree that I should wait those two months; and, indeed, if I do not wait, many people would say that I acted wrongly. The resulting child, moreover, would most likely be identified as the victim of my actions. This intuitive response, however, is surprisingly tricky to defend.  If harm is defined as making someone worse off than she otherwise would have been, it is difficult to maintain that I harmed the resulting child by my actions, even if she were impaired. For the child that would have been born two months later would not have been the same child that is born if I do not wait; the impaired child would never have existed had I waited those two months. Unless the child’s life is so bad that her nonexistence would be preferable, I did not make the child worse off by conceiving her and giving birth to her with those impairments, and thus I did not harm her. Because I did not harm her, I did not do anything morally wrong in this circumstance. The argument can best be standardized as follows:

1. I have only harmed an individual if I had made her worse off than she otherwise would have been had it not been for my actions.

2. Only if I have harmed someone can my action be deemed morally wrong.

3. A child born with mental, physical, or developmental impairments usually does not have a life that is so bad that it renders nonexistence preferable.

4. Therefore, a child born with mental, physical or developmental impairments is not made worse off by being brought into existence.

5. Therefore, deliberate conception, gestation, and birthing of a child with mental, physical, or developmental impairments does not, usually, harm the child (unless the impairments are so bad that they make the child’s life worse than not having existed at all).

6. Therefore, I have (usually) done nothing morally wrong by deliberately bringing into existence a child who suffers from mental, physical, or developmental impairments.

Using the nonidentity problem in the context of the reproductive cloning debate yields the following result: The alternative to being born a clone is not to be born at all. Unless the cloned child’s life is made so horrible by her disabilities that it would have been better that she not been born at all, she was not harmed by being brought into existence via cloning, even if she is born with genetic defects as a result. As long as the cloned child has a life that, despite her genetic defect, is still worth living, then it would still be permissible to use cloning to bring her into being (Lane, 2006).

It is important to note, however, that the nonidentity problem is controversial, and that not all philosophers and ethicists agree with its conclusion (Weinberg, 2008; Cohen, 1996). Indeed, many argue that it would be morally impermissible to bring a child into the world who suffers, even if the child’s life has a net value that renders it worth living (Steinbock and McClamrock, 1994).

Response 2: The dangers of natural reproduction.

Natural reproduction can itself produce dangerous results. Women dispose of fertilized eggs during their menstrual cycle more often than they are aware; one study claims that as many as 73% of fertilized eggs do not survive to 6 weeks gestation (Boklage, 1990). From the ones that do implant, approximately 2% to 3% of newborn infants suffer from congenital abnormities of varying degrees of severity (Kumar et al. , 2004). If safety concerns about cloning are severe enough to ban its practice, this can only be justified if cloning were more risky (that is, resulted in the birth of more children with more severe abnormalities) than natural reproduction. Some couples choose to reproduce in full knowledge that one or both of them harbor genetic disorders that may be passed along to their offspring, and some of these are rather severe, such as Huntington’s disease. Yet these parents are not prohibited from procreating because of this. Therefore, if parents are not prohibited from procreating on the grounds that they may pass along a severe genetic defect to their children, then it is difficult to deny a set of parents who can only rely on cloning for procreation the chance to do so based on safety reasons alone (unless the abnormalities that may result from cloning are more severe than the abnormalities that may result from natural conception) (Brock, 1997). Similarly, objecting to cloning on the grounds that embryos are sacrificed in order to achieve a live birth is only a valid objection if the number of embryos lost are greater in cloning than in natural reproduction.

Finally, even if safety concerns are sufficient to warrant a current ban on human reproductive cloning, such concerns would be temporary, and would abate as cloning becomes safer. Indeed, safety concerns led the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (1997) to recommend a temporary , rather than permanent, moratorium on human reproductive cloning.

e. Cloning Entails the Creation of Designer Children, or it Turns Children into Commodities

If we engage in cloning, this objection goes, we run the risk of inserting our will too much into our procreative decisions; we would get to choose not just to have a child, but what kind of child to have. In doing so, we run the risk of relegating children to the status of mere possessions or commodities, rather than regarding them as beings with their own intrinsic worth (Harakas, 1998; Kass, 1998; Meilaender, 1997).  When a couple engages in sexual intercourse and produces a baby, the child is an “offspring of a man and woman, but a replication of neither; their offspring but not their product whose meaning and destiny they might determine” (Meilaender, 1997, 42). Because cloning involves the artificial process of recreating a pre-existing genetic code, prospective parents could, first, choose their child’s DNA (thereby creating a “designer child”), and, second, because they are creating a “replica” of an existing person, they will consider the child more akin to property than an individual in her own right. These factors will contribute to viewing and treating the child as a mere commodity. The more “artificial” conception becomes, the more the resulting children will be seen as the possessions of the parents, rather than as persons in their own right. Rev. Stanley Harakas puts this point as follows: “Cloning would deliberately deny by design the cloned human being a set of loving and caring parents. The cloned human being would not be the product of love, but of scientific procedures. Rather than being considered persons, the likelihood is that these cloned human beings would be considered ‘objects’ to be used” (1998, 89).

Although he rejects the contention that clones would not be considered persons, Thomas Shannon expresses concerns that the increasing artificiality of conception, not just via the use of cloning, but via the use of all forms of artificial reproductive technologies, will “transform our thinking about ourselves, and the transformation will be in a mechanistic direction” (Shannon and Walter, 2003, 134). That is, the move away from natural conception towards artificial conception will lead to humans collectively regarding themselves as more machine-like rather than as organic beings.

Response 1: Cloning is not genetic modification.

Cloning does not necessarily entail the creation of “designer” children because cloning recreates a pre-existing DNA; it does not involve modifying or enhancing DNA in order to produce a child with certain desired traits. Cloning is not to be equated with genetic modification or enhancement (Wachbroit, 1997; Strong, 1998).

Response 2: Natural vs. artificial conception.

Advocates of the objection that cloning results in the transformation of procreation into manufacture seem to assume that, whereas we do not consider children that arise from natural reproduction as ours to do what we wish with, we would if they arise from artificial conception. That is, the tacit premise is that there is some trait inherent in artificial (i.e., non-sexual) conception that necessitates parents regarding their children as mere objects, and this trait is not found in “natural” conception. Yet, we can look towards the children who are products of modern day artificial reproduction in order to see that such a concern is not supported by the evidence. There are many children who are products of artificial reproductive technologies (IVF, intrauterine insemination, gender selection, and gamete intrafallopian transfer, among others) and there does not seem to be an increase of despotic control over these children on behalf of their parents. One study found that children born from IVF and DI (donor insemination) are faring as well as children born via natural conception. More importantly, given Meilaender’s concern that the quality of parenting is compromised in tandem with the artificiality of conception, the study found that “the quality of parenting in families with a child conceived by assisted conception is superior to that shown by families with a naturally conceived child, even when gamete donation is used in the child’s conception” (Golombok et al. , 1995, 295; also see Golombok, 2003 and Golombok et al. , 2001).

Meilaender may respond that, in these cases, the children are still a product of a unification of sperm and ovum, whereas this is not the case with cloning. However, it is unclear why generating a child via somatic cells is more likely to foster despotism than when the child is generated using germ cells. Some have argued that, on the contrary, a cloned child would feel even closer to the parent from whom she was cloned, given that they would share all their genetic information, rather than just half (Pence, 2008). Moreover, the findings of the study supported the thesis that “genetic ties are less important for family functioning than a strong desire for parenthood” (Golombok et al. , 1995, 296), which suggests that the parents of cloned children would not be as caught up with the genetic origins of their offspring, and so their parenting would not be as affected by it, as Meilaender contends. According to the study, the quality of parenting increased in tandem with the amount of effort it took to achieve parenthood. It could be argued, therefore, that the quality of parenting for cloned children would be just as good, if not superior, to that of naturally conceived children.

Response 3: Clones would not be loveless creations.

Harakas claims that cloned children will be deprived of loving parents because their genesis will be one of science, rather than love. The studies conducted by Golombok certainly seem to provide evidence to the contrary. Intentionally taking steps to create a child via cloning (or any other kind of reproductive technology) could be seen, instead, as a mutual affirmation of love on behalf of the prospective parents and clear evidence that they really desired the resulting child. Whereas in sexual reproduction the child may be a product of chance, a cloned child would be a product of deliberate choice, which, according to some philosophers, could be a superior method of creation in some respects (Buchanan et al. 2000). Creating a child via cloning does not entail that there is a lack of mutual love between the parents, or that the resulting child would be any less loved (Strong, 1998). Genesis via sexual reproduction is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being born to a set of loving parents and in a nurturing environment.

f. Cloning and the Ambiguity of Familial Roles

Genetically speaking, a cloned child would be her genetic predecessor’s identical twin sibling. If the child is cloned with the intent to serve as the social child of her genetic predecessor, she would be, genetically, her social mother’s twin sister (or his social father’s twin brother), and her social grandparents’ genetic daughter. The concern is that such a radical alteration of familial relationships would be detrimental to the cloned child (Kass, 1998; O’Neil, 2002). As Paul Ramsey puts it: “To mix the parental and the twin relation might well be psychologically disastrous for the young” (Ramsey, 1970). Wide-spread cloning would exacerbate the problem by distorting generational boundaries, which would add a layer of confusion to society’s conception of the nature of the family, and the roles of its individual members (Kass, 1998).

Response 1: No such confusion is likely to arise.

There are two responses to this response. First, doubts can be cast as to whether this confusion would really ensue. Second, even if such confusion did result, it is questionable whether it would be any more detrimental to the child than any confusion that currently exists about parental roles given certain reproductive technologies. For example, it is physically possible for a child to have as many as six distinct “parents”: three genetic parents (the mitochondrial DNA donor, the somatic cell donor used to re-nucleate an enucleated ovum, and the sperm donor), one gestational parent, and two (perhaps even more) social parents. If a cloned child would not experience any less confusion than a child in such a situation, then we would be hard pressed to show why the prospective parents of the former ought to be denied the opportunity to have a genetically related child based on these grounds alone (Harris, 2004). Moreover, doubts can be cast as to whether the ambiguity of genetic lineage caused by the cloning relationship will really result in the consequences Kass and O’Neil are fretting. A social father, for example, is not likely to suddenly rescind his responsibilities toward his daughter because the child is, genetically, his wife’s twin sister (Wachbroit, 1997). Finally, as is evident from children raised by adoptive parents, social parents usually retain the honorific role as the child’s “real” parents, even though there are no genetic ties between them and the adopted child. In other words, what defines a parent seems to have less to do with genetics and more to do with who performs the social role of mother and father (Purdy, 2005).

Response 2: Such confusion would not warrant a prohibition on cloning.

Even if there were such confusion, however, would it be so detrimental as to warrant banning reproductive cloning altogether? Moreover, even if there were a detriment, it is unclear whether that would be a result of society’s prejudice and fear of human cloning, or a result that inherently comes with being a clone. Finally, it would have to be clear that being the genetic twin to a social parent is so detrimental that it would warrant interfering with the prospective parents’ reproductive liberty. Indeed, for any purported harm that may come from cloning (whether physical, psychological, or emotional), it must be argued why those harms are sufficient for banning reproductive cloning if comparable harm would not be sufficient for banning any other kind of reproductive method, whether natural or artificial (Harris, 2004; Robertson, 2006).

6. References and Further Reading

• Agar, Nicholas (2004), Liberal Eugenics: A Defence of Human Enhancement . Malden: Blackwell.
• Allison, Lizabeth (2007), Fundamental Molecular Biology , chapter 8: “Recombinant DNA Technology and Molecular Cloning.” Malden: Blackwell, pp. 180-231.
• Annas, George et  al. (1996), “The Politics of Human-Embryo Research – Avoiding Ethical Gridlock.” New England Journal of Medicine , 334.20: 293-340.
• Annas, George (1998), “The Prospect of Human Cloning: An Opportunity for National and International Cooperation” in Human Cloning: Biomedical Ethical Review . James Humber and  Robert Almeder (eds). Totawa: Humana Press, pp. 53-63.
• Boiani, Michele and Hans Schöler (2002), “Determinants of Pluripotency in Mammals” in Principles of Cloning . Jose Cibelli, Robert Lanza, Keith Campbell, Michael D. West (eds.) New  York: Academic Press, pp. 109-152.
• Boklage, Charles (1990), “Survival Probability of Human Conceptions from Fertilization to Term.” International Journal of Fertility , 35.2:75-94.
• Bor, Jonathan, “Cloning Adds a Dimension to Nature-Nurture Debate: Identical Humans are Not in the Cards.” The Baltimore Sun, March 9, 1997.
• Boyle, Robert and Julian Savulescu (2001) “Ethics of Using Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis to Select a Stem Cell Donor for an Existing Person.”  BM J 323:1240-1243.
• Brannigan, Michael (ed.) (2001), Ethical Issues in Human Cloning . New York, NY: Seven Bridges Press.
• Brock, Dan (1997), “Cloning Human Beings: An Assessment of the Ethical Issues Pro and Con,” in Cloning Human Beings Volume II: Commissioned Papers . Rockville, MD: National Bioethics Advisory Commission.
• Buchanan, Allen et al. (2002), From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Burely, Justin and John Harris (1999), “Human Cloning and Child Welfare.” Journal of Medical Ethics , 25.2:108-113.
• Callahan, Daniel (1993), “Perspective on Cloning: A Threat to Individual Uniqueness; an Attempt to Aid Childless Couples by Engineered Conceptions Could Transform the Idea of Human Identity” in Los Angeles Times , Nov. 12, 1993.
• Cohen, Cynthia (1996), “’Give Me Children or I’ll Shall Die!’: New Reproductive Technologies and Harm to Children.” Hastings Center Report , 26.2: 19-27.
• Courtwright, Andrew M. and Wechsler Doron (2007), “Is Restricting Access to Assisted Reproductive Technology an Infringement of Reproductive Rights?”   American Medical Association Journal of Ethics , 9.9:  635-640.
• Dawkins, Richard (1998), “What Wrong with Cloning?” in Clones and Cloning: Facts and Fantasies About Human Cloning. Martha Nussbaum and Cass Sunstein (eds). New York: Norton and Company Inc, pp. 54-66.
• Deckers, Jan (2007), “Are Those Who Subscribe to the View that Early Embryos are Persons Irrational and Inconsistent?: A Reply to Brock.” Journal of Medical Ethics , 33.2: 102-106.
• Devolder, Katrien and Julian Savulescu (2006), “The Moral Imperative to Conduct Cloning and Stem Cell Research.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , 15.1: 7-21.
• Doetschman, R.G. et al. (1987), “Targeted Correction of a Mutant HPRT Gene in Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells.” Nature , 330: 576–578
• Dworkin, Ronald. Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion. Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom . New York: Vintage Press.
• Elliot, David (1998), “Uniqueness, Individuality, and Human Cloning,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 15.3: 217-230.
• Ethics Committee of the American Fertility Society (1985), “The Constitutional Aspects of Procreative Liberty” in Ethical Issues in the New Reproductive Technologies . Richard T. Hull (ed.)Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, pp. 8-15.
• Feinberg, Joel (1980), “A Child’s Right to an Open Future” in Philosophy of Education: An Anthology. Randall Curren (ed.) Malden: Blackwell, pp. 112-123.
• Freed. Curt. R. et al. April 21, 1999. “Double-Blind Controlled Trial of Human Embryonic Dopamine Cell Transplants in Advanced Parkinson’s Disease: Study, Design, Surgical Strategy, Patient Demographics, and Pathological Outcome” (presented to the American Academy of Neurology).
• French, Andrew J. et al. (2008), “Development of Human Cloned Blastocysts Following Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer with Adult Fibroblasts.” Stem Cells 26.2: 485-493.
• Gearhart, John D (1998), “New Potential for Human Embryonic Stem Cells,” Science 282: 1061.
• Glannon, Walter (2005), Biomedical Ethics . New  York: Oxford University Press.
• Golombok, Susan et al. (1995), “Families Created by the New Reproductive Technologies: Quality of Parenting and Social and Emotional Development of the Children.” Child Development, 66.2: 285-298.
• Golombok, Susan (2001), “The “Test-Tube” Generation: Parent-Child Relationships and the Psychological Well-Being of In Vitro Fertilization Children at Adolescence.” Child Development , 72.2: 599-608.
• Golombok, Susan (2003), “ Reproductive Technology and Its Impact on Child Psychosocial and Emotional Development” in: Tremblay RE, Barr RG, Peters RDeV (eds). Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development; 2003:1-7.
• Goodman, Jim. “Cloning Animals is Unnatural, Unethical.” The Capital Times , January 25, 2008.
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• Harakas, Stanley (1998), “To Clone or Not to Clone?” in Ethical Issues in Human Cloning . Edited by Michael C. Brannigan. New York, NY: Seven Bridges Press, pp. 89-90.
• Harris, John (1997), “Good-bye, Dolly?: The Ethics of Human Cloning.” Journal of Medical Ethics , 23.6: 353-360)
• Harris, John (2004), On Cloning. New York: Routledge.
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• Holm, Soren (1998), “A Life in Shadows: One Reason Why We Should Not Clone Humans.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 7.2: 160-162.
• Hopkins, Patrick. “Bad Copies: How Popular Media Represent Cloning as an Ethical Problem” in Ethical Issues in Human Cloning . Edited by Michael C. Brannigan. New York, NY: Seven Bridges Press, pp. 128-140.
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• Kant, Immanuel (1981), Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
• Kass, Leon (1998), “The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Humans” in Ethical Issues in Human Cloning . Edited by Michael C. Brannigan. New York, NY: Seven Bridges Press, pp. 43-66.
• Kitcher, Phillip (1997), “Who’s Self is it Anyway?” Sciences , 37.5: 58-62.
• Klotzko, Arlene (1998), “Voices from Roslin: The Creators of Dolly Discuss Science, Ethics, and Social Responsibility.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , 7.2: 121-140.
• Kumar, Vinay et al. (2004), Robbins & Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease, 7 th Edition . New York: Saunders.
• Lane, Robert (2006), “Safety, Identity, and Consent: A Limited Defense of Reproductive Human Cloning.” Bioethics , 20.3: 125-135.
• Lanza, Robert et al. (2000), “Cloning Noah’s Ark.” Scientific American , 283.5:84-89.
• Levick, Stephen (2004), Clone Being: Exploring the Psychological and Social Dimensions . Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
• Li, Ziyi (2006), “Cloned Ferrets Produced by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.”  Developmental Biology , 293.2: 439-448
• Lovgren, Stefan, May 29, 2003. ”U.S. Team Produces First Mule Clone.” National Geographic News.
• Lumelsky, Nadya et al. (2001), “Differentiation of Embryonic Stem Cells to Insulin- Secreting Structures Similar to Pancreatic Islets,” Science , 292: 1389–1394.
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• Maguire, Daniel (1983), “The Morality of Homosexual Marriages” in Same-Sex Marriage: The Moral and Legal Debate . Amherst: Prometheus Books, pp. 147-161.
• McCormick, Richard. “Should We Clone Humans?” The Christian Century , November 17-24, 1993.
• McCormick, Richard (1994), “Blastomere Separation: Some Concerns.” Hastings Center Report 24.2: 14- 16.
• Meilaender, Gilbert (1997), “Begetting and Cloning.” First Things , 74: 41-43.
• Murray, Thomas April 8, 2001. “Even If It Worked, Cloning Won’t Bring Her Back.”  The Washington Post .
• National Bioethics Advisory Commission. “Cloning Human Beings: Reports and Recommendations.” June 9, 1997.
• National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.  March 25, 1999, “What Would You Hope to Achieve from Stem Cell Research?” Response to Senator Arlen Specter’s Inquiry.
• Novak, Michael. September 3, 2001. “The Stem Cell Slide: Be Alert to the Beginnings of Evil.”  National Review.
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Bertha Alvarez Manninen Email: [email protected] Arizona State University at the West Campus U. S. A.

An encyclopedia of philosophy articles written by professional philosophers.

Is Human Cloning Is Wrong Essay

Show More Scientist are trying to clone human as we know they are trying to clone the first human being. The problem is that human cloning is wrong animal cloning is wrong, they are trying to experiment on people and animals which the process will probably kill them both we could make a law to stop human cloning. Human Cloning is a bad thing, scientists are already cloning animals the United Nation needs to pass a nonbinding Declaration on Human Cloning we can not clone humans because it would kill the person who is being cloned we need a law that no more cloning. Scientist have been cloning for a long time as we speak. Scientist have figured out how to clone by using scientific methods as so. “German scientist Hans Spemann first proposed the idea of nuclear transfer cloning in 1938. He suggested taking a body cell from an adult organism, removing the nucleus, and putting it into an enucleated egg cell (one that has had its nucleus removed)” (Solway 41). This proves that scientist should not clone it is important because they are trying to put an adult human cell in a egg cell (baby animal) and combine them together. Human cloning is possible but …show more content… The Dickey-Wicker amendment, attached to U.S. appropriations bills since 1995, has prevented the use of federal dollars to fund the harm or destruction of human embryos for research. It is presumed that nuclear transfer and any other form of cloning is subject to this restriction.” cited from ("Cloning"). This proves that a law has not bun passed yet so that law needs to get a law that will make scientist pay a fine if they continue human cloning that fine would be jail

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Cloning Right or Wrong? Essay

Cloning Right or Wrong? Have you ever heard of cloning before? Well it has a lot of ups and its downs, many people are against it and many are for it? In my paper you will hear and of the good things and the bad things that happen in cloning and you can decide if you think it is right or wrong. History When I looked up the definition for cloning on www.m-w .com it stated that cloning is to propagate a clone from or to make a copy of. A book on cloning that I read stated that cloning is genetically identical cells. Cloning’s history is as early as 1952 and the first cell transferring was in 1970. The cell process was not 100 percent accurate every time. Back in the 1970’s many scientists struggled with trying to clone something and it …show more content…

When people talk about cloning the bible is usually taken out on a person that is for cloning. Religion now a day has just decided to pretty much ignore the topic and forget about it. If humans were cloned they say that there would be a huge inbreeding problem and the world will start having even more population than what is necessary. Cloning is pretty much just a huge issue without an end; it’s something that you can argue on and on about. I looked up a chart and found one on www.religioustolerance.org about people’s thoughts and what they think about cloning. The poll was taken on 1997 and consisted of 1,005 American Adults. These are the results 93% of people felt that the cloning of humans was a bad idea 66% thought that the cloning of animals, such as sheep was a bad idea 69% are scared of possibility of human cloning 74% believed that it is against God’s will to clone things; while only 19% say that it is not. A later poll was then take in 2001 by CNN and these are the results for that poll 90% of people still thought that cloning was a bad idea 67% of people that that cloning of animal was a bad idea Only 45% of people thought that it was possible to have human cloning within the next 10 years or so. 69% of people think that it is against God’s will and should not be done; 23% say that it is not. Laws on Cloning Only fifteen states have their own law on cloning even South Dakota. This is South Dakota’s law: Prohibits

Cloning and Stem Cell Research

The vast majority of Americans object to human cloning, and on multiple moral grounds, among them the following. It constitutes unethical experimentation on the child-to-be, subjecting him or her to enormous risks

Should Cloning Be Allowed In The United States

I do not think that cloning should not be allowed in the United States let alone in the rest of the world. It can be done on people and animals after they are dead. People think that cloning will ease the pain of the dead when the clone is not the same person. The person or animal is gone and the clone is not going to ease the pain. You just have to deal with the pain and you will slowly get through it cloning will never get rid of it.

Monsters We Have Created

Cloning is very unpredictable. Because of this, the results are unclear. Therefore, it is likely that people are apprehensive towards this technology in that there is a fifty percent chance the outcome will result negatively. There is no way to understand how human cloning will affect us as a species since the technology to do so has not yet been developed and used (‘Human Cloning”). Not only does human cloning stretch beyond our understanding but also it has a negative connotation in society. As stated in “Human Cloning”, “Expressing the popular distaste for cloning, Clinton stated that it undermines the uniqueness and sacredness of human life” (“Cloning”). It is evident that cloning provides for a negative connotation. If the technology and science behind human cloning were to be stable and provide for a predictable outcome, it would be a less controversial topic in society. Undeniably the unpredictable nature of human cloning proves that the science behind it is far too advanced for our wisdom to use it

The Role Of Cloning In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

The earliest that the science of cloning was discovered was in 1885 and the thing being clones was a simple sea urchin. Today, when most people hear of cloning, they can only think of one thing and that is Dolly the sheep. Dolly, a sheep from the United Kingdom, was the first mammal created by cloning from another sheep. She was created by two biologists by the name of Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell. Dolly was not necessarily the first living thing cloned, but she was quite a big deal because she was actually an exact clone from another sheep and this really caught the attention of people all over the world. Cloning is a very interesting type of science considering it takes just one strand of DNA and creating an exact creature, however not all people agree that cloning is safe and some think it goes beyond a good christian religion. Many people would agree that cloning is very unnatural and if it gets in the wrong hands, then catastrophic things can happen however there is two viewpoints on cloning. Lots of people would agree that cloning could be a great thing because it could help people with disease by reproducing damaged tissue or diseased organs. There are pros and Cons to the science of cloning, but what about the emotional aspect of it. Scientists that use cloning often play the role

The Opposition to Human Cloning: How Morality and Ethics Factor in

• 10 Works Cited

If a random individual were asked twenty years ago if he/she believed that science could clone an animal, most would have given a weird look and responded, “Are you kidding me?” However, that once crazy idea has now become a reality, and with this reality, has come debate after debate about the ethics and morality of cloning. Yet technology has not stopped with just the cloning of animals, but now many scientists are contemplating and are trying to find successful ways to clone human individuals. This idea of human cloning has fueled debate not just in the United States, but also with countries all over the world. I believe that it is not morally and ethically right

The Pros and Cons of Human Cloning Essay

Many people have asked, "Why would anyone want to clone a human being?" There are at least two good reasons: to allow families to conceive twins of exceptional individuals, and to allow childless couples to reproduce. In a free society we must also ask, "Are the negative consequences sufficiently compelling that we must prohibit consenting adults from doing this?" We will see that in general they are not. Where specific abuses are anticipated, these can be avoided by targeted laws and regulations, which I will suggest below.

The Cloning Of The Sheep

The successful cloning of “Dolly” the sheep caused a worldwide reaction. Many arguments as to whether it is morally acceptable to clone a human being have taken place, resulting in human cloning being legal in some countries while illegal in others. There are two forms of cloning, reproductive and therapeutic. In Britain therapeutic cloning is legal, if you have a license, whereas reproductive cloning is illegal. 41% of Americans are against cloning in general and 87% are against producing a child through cloning. Are they right to have their concerns?Also, some religions are against cloning humans for moral reasons. Catholic, Muslim and Jewish religions believe cloning to be morally wrong as it turns man into the creator, as opposed to god. Granted, other medical procedures such as heart transplants could be considered playing god. However these procedures save lives, whereas cloning is not essential for emergency life saving procedures and brings a lot of problems. Cloning frightens people because they worry about creating a real life Jekyll and Hyde. The concept of modifying people would be encouraged. While this may appear to be science fiction these concerns should not be dismissed just yet. Physically, science would allow the clones to be designed, as if factory made. Evidently, this will cause a lack of diversity in the world as all the disliked, “ugly” characteristics are filtered out. Hence the population will become too alike. An army of people the exact same could

Cloning: Is It Ethical? Essay

While some believe cloning to be acceptable others feel equally strongly that human cloning is completely wrong. With the state of the science as it is at the moment it would involve hundreds of damaged pregnancies to achieve one single live cloned baby. What is more, all the evidence suggests that clones are unhealthy and often have a number of built-in genetic defects, which lead to premature ageing and death. It would be completely wrong to bring a child into the world knowing that it was extremely likely to be affected by problems like these. The dignity of human life and the genetic uniqueness we all have would be attacked if cloning became commonplace. People might be

Against Cloning Essay

• 4 Works Cited

     As soon as you mention the word cloning, you are most likely to ignite a debate. This is because people are greatly divided on whether it's good or bad. A way to reach a conclusion is to look at cloning from ethical, risk, and religious perspectives. The reality is, cloning is unethical, very risky, and irreligious. The arguments I will make will hopefully convince you that cloning is not good for the future.

Essay about Argument Against Human Cloning

• 9 Works Cited

Many ethical and moral dilemmas arise when discussing human cloning, and one can have many positions for and against each. To understand the issues surrounding human cloning, one must have a basic

Persuasive Essay About Cloning

Cloning is by itself a straightforward scientific process it is only when you add the Human element that it gets complicated. By default man believes in a god or higher power and the act of man creating life is seen by some as an attempt to play god. Some people may also have other questions such as who would, in theory, own the cloned life, or is the clone really any different from the real thing. Cloning is questioned because it redefines the relationship between man, god, and life. There can be many arguments made for or against cloning with many of them starting with a few central questions is it okay for man to play god? Should we mess with life? When do we stop?

Legal And Ethical Issues Of Human Cloning

• 3 Works Cited

This issue continues to be a significant national and international policy issue although most countries still do not have specific cloning laws (Bonnicksen A., 2002).

Human Cloning Should be Permitted Essay example

Since I began doing this project I have heard countless arguments against human cloning, however

Cloning Essays

The poll taken by CNN1 seemed to focus wholly on the morality of cloning, and why shouldn’t it. When asked the question, “Is it morally unacceptable to clone humans,” 89% of the people said, “Yes, it is morally unacceptable to clone humans.” This seems to me to be a good outcome, but it also tells me that 11% of the people need to be “turned around.” I believe one of the most important factors in the population’s reasoning on the issue of cloning is their religion or lack of religion. Being a Catholic, I believe that we were created by God and that God should be the only one who should have the power to make a human. It would almost be a spit in the face of my religion to see some fallible human creating a person. What good will this knowledge be in the future. I can see no logical use for the cloning of a human. I am not willing to sacrifice my values and morals for worthless knowledge. During the same poll, the question was asked, “Is cloning humans against God’s will?” 74% of the people answered “Yes” to this question. Because this percentage is less than the one before, this tells us that 15% of the poll defines morals differently from their religion or that they do not believe in or understand God’s will. Nonetheless, this shows us that the majority of the population does see what is morally and ethically wrong with meddling

A Research Study On Stem Cells And Cloning

5.IT WILL CONTRADICT THE RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL BELIEFS OF PEOPLE:All religious institutions hold up the belief that human cloning means mocking the role of God

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