So Whats So Bad About Human Cloning

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So Whats So Bad About Human Cloning?

• Andrew Latus
• Jan. 22, 2003

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An Important Distinction

• Therapeutic Cloning vs. Reproductive Cloning
• Therapeutic producing a clone as a source of
  material for experiment and/or treatment
• Some moral issues differ depending on the type of
  cloning being discussed
• Main focus will be on reproductive cloning

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Six Issues

• 1. 'It's unnatural.'
• 2. The moral status of clones
• 3. The motivation of the person being cloned
• 4. Risks to the clone
• 5. Who will the parent be?
• 6. Does cloning someone inherently disrespect the
  clone?
• 1, 2, 3 6 are also relevant to therapeutic
  cloning

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1. Unnaturalness

• Or cloning is playing god.
• Or cloning is inconsistent with human dignity
• some practices are simply unacceptable,
  because they're not consistent with human
  dignity, such as cloning a person and creating
  animal-human hybrids. Those are unacceptable,
  because they're just not consistent with human
  dignity." (Alan Rock, May 3, 2001)
• In other words, theres just something wrong with
  cloning, no matter how its carried out.

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2. The Moral Status of Clones

• Would clones be people like you and me?
• Would they have souls?
• Some claim that human cloning will involve the
  creation of a 'new slave class'.
• For therapeutic cloning at what point does the
  clone become morally important?

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3. The Motivation of the Person Being Cloned

• Some claim that to want to clone yourself is to
  have a morally bad motivation.
• Perhaps it's unacceptably vain.
• Perhaps it involves seeing a clone as a means to
  an end, not as an entity that is valuable in and
  of itself

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4. Risks to the Clone

• A clone might suffer physical, psychological, or
  social harm.
• Physical Many reports of cloned animals being
  less healthy than the original
• Psychological Growing up knowing yourself to be
  a genetic copy of someone may have a
  psychological cost
• Social A stigma might attach to being known to
  be a clone

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5. Who will the parent be?

• Both a legal and a moral question
• Would the clone be a child or a sibling of the
  person cloned (or neither)?
• The category of parent has both biological and
  social elements

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6. Does cloning someone inherently disrespect the
clone?

• Also relevant to the motivation of the person
  being cloned
• A central ethical idea a person should be
  treated not as a means to an end, but as an end
  in him/herself
• Will clones always (or almost always) be created
  as a means to some end?
• E.g., reproducing a loved one, a great leader, an
  athlete, producing a source for a transplant