Ethical issues of human cloning

by ashleylui (student)

There is ongoing controversy regarding the issue of human cloning in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia which have made attempts or have done research in reproductive cloning. Countries like Australia have prohibited human cloning in 2006. (NHMRC, 2007) Advocates who involve congress members, editorial writers, fertility specialists...and so on gave benefits of human cloning, yet not enough to justify the moral and ethical issues underlying the controversy. Human cloning refers to the creation of a genetically identical copy of an existing human or growing cloned tissue from that individual. This essay will illustrate the major ethical concerns associated with human cloning that lead to the conclusion that human cloning should not be encouraged. The greatest moral objection against human cloning lies in the claim that individuals may be unnecessarily harmed, either during experiments or by expectations after birth. Given the immature technology of human cloning, safety issues may arise. Secondly, at the level of human rights, human cloning may violate two fundamental principles which human rights are based on: the principle of equality between individuals and the principle of non-discrimination. (de Dios Vial Correa, year unknown, internet) Furthermore, the issue of whether human clones are subject to all human rights are questioned, it is ambiguous regarding this issue. Lastly, the issue of ‘expectation’ is common in cloned children, they are likely to be expected to excel in a certain area depending on the cloned parent whom genes are extracted. In other words, such expectations will exert a significant amount of psychological pressure on human clones, especially when growing up. Moreover, the future path of human clones may be decided even before their birth, thus leaving no options of self-independence.

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To begin with, medical and technical safety of reproductive cloning process is regarded as the most significant ethical issue. It required 277 attempts and 99 implantations to create one healthy Dolly, having said that, there is strong evidence that Dolly exhibited numerous pathologies throughout her life (Wilmut, 2003, 99). It is unknown regarding how many attempts are needed to create a human being and there will be uncertainties involving what abnormalities both the embryo and cloned parent may bear. Due to the current state of cloning technology, it is irresponsible and unethical for anyone to attempt to create a child using somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning. Furthermore, putting human embryos at risks is not the only issue, an egg must be implanted into a living human to go into regular embryonic life cycles, there are certain risks that the human body may reject the embryo, killing the mother. (Van Arsdale, 2008) Possibilities of risks should not be ruled out not only at the stage of developing a cloned embryo, but also when the embryo has grown into a child. From experiences of cloning mammals, high deformity and disability rates are more than likely to occur. (UNESCO, 2005) it should be noted that the prerequisite is that the cloned embryo has developed fully, as the process of human cloning involves a high failure rate of 90%. In addition, cloned mammals have died from premature infection and other complications, which are to be expected from human clones as well. A hypothesis is given that cloned humans may need hip replacement surgery even at the stage of adolescence and may suffer senility at the age of 20. (Holm, 2002, 507) Therefore, medical safety issues are a major concern associated with human cloning due to the fact that understanding of reproductive cloning is still rudimentary.

Secondly, another ethical concern expressed by representatives from human rights campaign and child welfare organisations regarding human cloning is the interests and rights of human clones. Even if scientists are able to create human clones without incurring the risks mentioned above, much is questioned about the welfare of human clones. As noted by Pattison, the act of human cloning could imply an intention to violate the rights of clones in the future. (2002, 297) It is not necessarily the cloning process itself that violates rights of clones, but the implications of a successful creation of a human clone. They may be created with a certain purpose in the mind of the creator, or carrying pressure and social expectations, thus violating human rights and personal dignity of clones. The consequences of a person in his unrighteous mind creating an army of Hitler-alikes are unthinkable. Besides criticisms that clones may be used as an instrument, it is also claimed that as clones are genetic copies, whether he or she will be treated as an equal member of the community is a problem, even with the implementation of laws protecting rights and welfares of human clones, they may still be faced with prejudicial attitude others have towards them. (Wright, 2000) Given the issue of infringement of dignity and whether human clones are fully subject to all rights, it can be seen as a major ethical issue surrounding human cloning.

Finally, another ethical issue is that human clones may be harmed by expectations and demand from parents. It can be said that not only may human clones be harmed by physical risks in the process of cloning, but also the psychological effects which may have an even larger impact on the growth and development of human clones. They may be wronged in morally significant ways, for example, a child created from reproductive cloning may be burdened with oppressive expectations from parents or genes donors. (Morales, 2009, internet) A child cloned from a soccer player, for instance, may be asked to emphasize on opportunities or activities that are In line with a career in soccer, this will not only limit the growth and development of the child, but with constant comparing to the adult from whom they were cloned, psychological pressure may be exerted on them. Consequently, with no sense of self-worth or individuality, the child may tend to believe that he or she is merely a carbon copy, giving the outcome that children produced from reproductive cloning are likely to have psychological problems of identity, dignity and individuality. (President’s Council, 2002, internet) As a result, it can be said that oppressive expectations burdened on human clones is an ethical issue and reason why human cloning should not be advocated.

To conclude, diverse opinions are strongly held regarding the ethnicity of human cloning which include: Safety concerns are expressed regarding human cloning, given there are too many unknowns concerning reproductive cloning of human, attempts to clone human is considered potentially dangerous and ethically irresponsible. Secondly, it is believed that human cloning is unlikely to be delivered in an equitable manner, as they may not be entitled to full rights, with a deeper concern regarding promoting trends of designer babies. Finally the last ethical issue discussed is that parental expectations and constant comparisons could psychologically affect the cloned child. (McConville, 2001, 399) The issue of significant importance is believed to be the fact that the current reproductive cloning technology is unsafe, experiments have shown that cloned animals have a high chance of dying from infections and physical deformities, there is no reason to believe that the outcome of attempted human cloning will be any different. As a result, in order to secure the safety of living things and to curb the abuse of technology, human cloning is encouraged to be banned internationally until the global community including scientists and ethicists find out answers to ethnicity of human cloning.

Bibliography

De Dios Vial Correa, J. (year unknown) ‘Reflections on Cloning’

Accessed 02/10/2010

Holm, S. (2002) ‘Going to the Roots of the Stem Cell Controversy’, Bioethics 16(6): 493-507

McConville, P.S. (2001) ‘Physicians and Cloning’ Current Surgery 58(4), 399-401

Morales, N. (2009) ‘Psychological and Ideological Aspects of Human Cloning: A Transition to a Transhumanist Psychology’ Journal of Evolution and Technology -Vol. 20 Issue 2, 19-42

Accessed 02/10/2010

National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 12 June 2007, ‘Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproductive Act 2002’

Pattison, S. (2002) ‘Reproductive Cloning: can cloning harm the Clone?’ Med L Rev 10:295-307

President’s Council on Bioethics (2002, July) Human Cloning and human dignity: An ethical inquiry.

Accessed 10/10/2010

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2005) ‘Human Cloning Ethical Issues)

Van Arsdale, K. (2008) ‘To clone or not to clone: A View into the ethics behind reproductive cloning’ Classical Bioethicists, Government Ethics Journal

Wilmut, I. (2003) ‘Dolly- her life and legacy’ in Cloning Stem Cells, 99-100

Wright, TG. (2000) ‘Second thoughts: how human cloning can promote human dignity’ Valparaiso University Law Review, 35:1-35