Human cloning, on the other hand, is a radical departure from this lineage. It substitutes two individuals necessary for reproduction with only one, such that the death of the "original" person does not mean a true end to that person's existence: the genetic duplicate still represents that deceased individual genetically and physically. As Leon Kass remarks, "Whether or not we know it, the severing of procreation from sex, love, and intimacy is inherently dehumanizing, no matter how good the product" Kass, "Wisdom" Furthermore, with natural reproduction, we acknowledge that when a child is born, we will accept him or her for what he or she is, not what we had hoped for him or her to be.
When parents agree to have a child, they are accepting whatever nature decides their child to be, dyslexic, hearing-impaired, or mentally disabled; when parents decide to instead "manufacture" a child, they are saying that only a child who fulfills certain criteria will be accepted. But, if a cloning mishap returns a child who does not conform to all of the criteria, then are we agreeing to destroy that "specimen"?
By accepting human cloning, we are changing our society from one that procreates with the blessings of nature, to one that manufactures human life for the sake of the "right qualities. If human cloning poses such great risks, then what can be done to save the yet-to-be-cloned and society? The answer is a simple: ban human cloning. Why permit a technology that perhaps only the rich will be able to use? That can be subjected to misuse by criminal minds?
That will create a loss of individuality for the cloned "specimen"? That will ultimately shatter our value of what a human life really means? Obviously with such powerful technology, government guidelines will not be sufficient: there will certainly be those who appear to be using cloning for "legitimate" purposes but are really using it for their personal benefit.
As President Bush remarked, "Anything other than a total ban on human cloning would be virtually impossible to enforce. Cloned human embryos created for research would be widely available in laboratories and embryo farms. Once cloned embryos were available, implantation would take place. Even the tightest regulations and strict policing would not prevent or detect the birth of cloned babies" His words raise the important issue of enforcing a ban on one type of human cloning while allowing another.
How would it be possible to enforce this nationwide when law enforcement officials are already spread so thin by today's problems? More importantly, once an embryo is implanted, it would be impossible to tell from a glance whether a pregnant woman had developed the baby from sexual reproduction or human cloning techniques.
Banning reproductive cloning while allowing research cloning would simply be ineffective given the inability to enforce such a ban, and the continuing risk for implantation of the embryo into a surrogate mother.
In light of these concerns, the U. House of Representatives passed a ban on all forms of human cloning in the United States in , but the ban has met with some resistance in the Senate. The issue has largely centered on research cloning since most agree that human cloning for reproductive purposes should not be allowed, but research cloning could perhaps provide new insight into treating diseases. A report released in July by the President's Council on Bioethics voiced similar concerns.
The seventeen-member board unanimously agreed that reproductive cloning is unethical and should be permanently banned. However, the board was split in regards to cloning for medical research purposes. Ten members voted to ban all research cloning while seven members argued to allow research cloning but under strict federal regulation. The ten-member majority thus recommended a four-year ban during which the Council would conduct a thorough federal review of current and anticipated practices of human cloning for research purposes Dignity.
Meanwhile, the international community has also begun to take part in the human cloning debate. The United Nations created a committee to draft guidelines concerning human cloning, but as of November 19, , no agreement could be reached. Whereas the United States and the Vatican proposed a ban on all forms of cloning, France and Germany were more open to the possibility of using human cloning for therapeutic purposes Lederer.
Yet human cloning for therapeutic is not as safe or effective as proponents would like to claim. Some advocates may argue that by prohibiting cloning, we are refusing to save the lives of those dying from cancer or other terminal illnesses. Their reasoning is simple: human cloning would allow us to save those dying from kidney cancer by "manufacturing" a new kidney, and likewise, to save others dying from other illnesses as well.
Yet, we should be suspect when there appear no initial disadvantages. And what happens when we take the new body part to donate to the other dying person? Obviously, we must kill the clone that the organ was taken from, since most likely, he or she will not be able to live normally. As a result, the value of a human life may become nothing more than a specimen that can be discarded as easily as a used product. In addition, the use of human cloning as a replacement mechanism for transplants may not be as promising as originally thought.
In a BBC report on cloning, it labeled cloning as an imprecise science. New research which found that not all new cloned stem cells were always accepted by the target's immune system prompted further questioning as to whether human cloning would indeed be promising for research and therapeutic measures.
But when the issue comes to a recommendation of a ban, some proponents such Laurence Tribe, a Harvard College and Harvard Law School graduate, argue that just like our attempted bans on abortion and pre-marital sex, a ban on human cloning will be hard to enforce Tribe 2.
Yet, there is a difference between cloning and the two issues aforementioned: human cloning is still in its infancy. Obviously, once something becomes popular, the prevention of its practice becomes nearly impossible since it is so prevalent. But with cloning, we have yet to clone a human being, and moreover, we are still in debate as to whether human cloning should be allowed at all.
Thus, a ban on human cloning at this point is feasible, but we need to act now. As an issue that poses immediate threats to mankind, we simply cannot allow human cloning to begin, nor can we suggest that human cloning but with government oversight will be sufficient. By doing so, transparency in policy making is obscured or even lost. As noted by Shaun Pattinson in his critique of the Canadian government's use of human dignity as a justification for a ban: "Once again we are left with the feeling that other arguments are in play but remain unsure as to what those arguments are".
If the concerns about cloning are based on the fear that we live in a world increasingly governed by inaccurate views of genetic determinism and, therefore, people may have inappropriate ideas of what cloning can do, [ 59 ] then this too should be stated.
Indeed, it could be argued that we should be focussing our policy making energy not on the technology but on the possible causes of the deterministic sentiments that may motivate the desire to use reproductive cloning. Unfortunately, "genetic determinism" is a much more challenging and amorphous policy target as compared with human cloning technology. In addition, using human dignity as a blanket argument against all forms of human cloning makes it much more difficult to reflect rationally on the true risks and benefits of the technology.
Such claims can have powerful rhetorical force no one is against the idea of human dignity! Finally, we are in danger of trivializing and degrading the potential normative value of human dignity.
There seems little doubt that the rapid advances that are occurring in the field of science, and biotechnology in particular, will continue to create new social and regulatory challenges, many of which may also raise issues associated with notions of human dignity.
The way we handle current science policy issues stands as a precedent for future analysis. The ad hoc application of human dignity in relation to human cloning will undoubtedly impact how it is applied to future technologies. We should strive to apply the principle in a logical and coherent fashion otherwise the notion of human dignity is in danger of being eroded to the point where it stands as nothing more than a symbol of amorphous cultural anxiety.
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Albany Law Review. Saturday Night. National Journal of Constitutional Law. Download references. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to Timothy Caulfield. Reprints and Permissions. Caulfield, T. But this is just not true. We know, as a result of studies of identical twins "natural" clones reared apart, that one's experiences, one's environment plays a role in determining what a person becomes.
We may be able to make some predictions about what a clone will ultimately turn out to be like, but we will not be able to predict everything about what this person will be like because no other person has had, or will have, this person's life experiences. I don't really understand how we'd be "playing God" in a substantially stronger sense if we were to clone human beings than, say, create them through IVF technology.
People are concerned that allowing the cloning of human beings could lead to the ultimate avenue of expression of people's supposed tendency towards "narcissism and megalomania" : "Make me my heir.
It also shows that there is a confusion between "exactly similar" and "identical". To clone an adult human being through somatic cell nuclear transfer and implantation the technique used to create Dolly would necessarily create a considerably younger person rather than an identical twin a person of the same age who has the same DNA.
This person would necessarily grow up in a different environment, since, at the very least, the "times" would be different. And, as has already been noted, we have learned from the studies of identical twins reared apart that environmental factors do make a difference.
So there is no reason to think that one's clone would turn out to be exactly like oneself. Even if it were possible to duplicate a person's upbringing such that the person's clone would turn out to be exactly similar, it would not be that same person.
There are three general philosophical theories of personal identity, that is three views which specify criteria for A and B being considered to be the same person, and one's clone would not be considered to be the same person as oneself under any of these theories.
The first general theory of personal identity uses a bodily criterion. A is said to be the same person as B if they have the same body, or crucial body part e. The second theory of personal identity maintains that A and B can be said to be the same person if they have the same underlying mental substance what laymen call "soul".
Assuming that human beings do have non-material souls, there is no reason to think that one's clone will have the same soul as oneself, not any more than in the case of identical twins. The third, and probably the most popular theory in philosophical circles, maintains that A and B can be said to be the same person just in case there is causally explained overlap between the mental experiences of the two. Again, this criterion would rule out oneself and one's clone being considered to be the same person.
The mental experiences may be similar, even exactly similar, but the required causal relationship will not exist between one's own mental experiences and one's clone's. It has been said that a cloned human being wouldn't have a soul, wouldn't be a unique individual; but clones would not be any less full human beings than the originals.
If we have souls, then so would they. They would be no less their own persons than identical twins are. Furthermore, they would probably be more unlike their originals than identical twins are dissimilar because they would develop at different times in different environments. Some have maintained that a cloned person would suffer, having foreknowledge of powerful genetic predispositions.
The reality is that very soon we will all have this information, given the speed with which the Human Genome Project and other researchers are uncovering facts about genetic predispositions. Many have claimed that cloning human beings would violate human dignity, particularly since it takes many attempts to successfully create a human being. Thus, it could be said that we would be behaving in a way which is quite careless with human life in its early stages.
What about abortion, which permits women to destroy potential human beings? And consider the fact that IVF technology is used to create many human embryos, only some of which are implanted others are frozen, just in case they're needed, and then eventually discarded and, of those which are implanted, few actually develop into human beings. I don't see how we would be any more careless with human life, should we clone human beings, than we are at present.
There are plausible arguments for banning all these practices. My point is just that cloning human beings would be no worse than practices we already engage in.
In particular, I have two concerns:. Many of the proposed uses of cloning human beings e. This violates Kant's intuitively valid ethical principle that persons should always be treated as ends in themselves, never as a means of satisfying other persons' ends. Using persons for other persons' purposes would involve treating human beings with less than the respect which they deserve; it would deny them their autonomy.
It can be said that we all use others, e. There is less choice involved for the one being "used". I have heard of parents trying to conceive a child in hopes of getting a tissue match for a bone marrow transplant for an older sibling. If this is the only reason for having the child, I find it to be, similarly, morally objectionable. Others have proposed that we clone outstanding human beings with the idea of improving the human race.
I think this is a very dangerous idea. Of course we all have a tendency to make individual judgments that person x is a better person than person y , but I don't think we want to, as a society, encourage this kind of thinking.
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