Is Human Cloning Still a Current Issue?

In his article, “Cloning Human Beings: an Assessment of the Ethical Issues Pro and Con”, written shortly after the infamous cloned sheep, Dolly, was “produced” in 1997, Dan Brock delves into the moral issues involved in human cloning. When the news of the first successful cloning came out, many people quickly condemned it as a violation of moral rights and “ethically unacceptable”. Brock begins his article with analyzing this particular response, stating that many of the individuals condemning cloning were doing so from an emotional, or relativistic, standpoint and although it is incorrect to base moral reasoning from such a position, he states that the reason why the issue of cloning elicits such a response must be clarified and understood in order to come to a conclusion on whether Human cloning is morally justifiable in today’s society.

First, Brock investigates the argument for human cloning. He suggests that the right to clone oneself successfully falls under an individual’s moral right of reproductive freedom, especially if this is the only way this individual can successfully reproduce. After identifying what moral right is at stake with the right to clone oneself, Brock outlines the possible benefits to individuals and society:

1. It would allow a new means in a way to relieve infertility, especially if other infertility technologies were not an option.
2. It would enable couples who may have a genetically transferrable disease the ability to have a biological related child from at least from one of the partners.
3. The cloning of a “later twin” would allow an individual the ability to obtain needed organs or tissues for transplantation.
4. It would allow an individual to clone another of significant meaning to them, such as a lost loved one.
5. It would enable duplication of individuals with great talent and genius.
6. It would allow for important advances in scientific research.

Brock ends his argument for Human Cloning by stating that although there is no great benefit to human cloning, a case can be made for cloning through the premise of protecting the moral right to reproductive freedom.


Brock continues his article by turning his attention to the argument against human cloning using the same format. He first identifies what moral rights are at stake if human cloning was legal in society, focusing on “the right to an open future”, meaning the moral right of a “later twin” to decide their own fate. Brock emphasizes that this “right to an open future” is not based in the reality of the situation but in the later twin’s perception of their future. If the later twin perceives their fate to be decided due to the earlier twin’s past life decisions then their moral right to decide their own future is compromised and is therefore morally wrong.

Specific harms due to Human Cloning in society are then outlines as follows:

1. The psychological stress to the later twin. Again this is dealing with the perceived loss of control of the later twin rather than the reality of the situation.
2. Risks to the cloned individual, such as trial and error, failed attempts at cloning and premature death of cloned individual.
3. Cloning would lessen the intrinsic worth of a human being and diminish respect for life.
4. Cloning would divert resources from other important societal and medical needs.
5. Cloning might be used for commercial interest for financial gain.
6. Clones could be used by government or others for immoral and exploitative purposes.
7. Widespread use of Cloning would drastically reduce genetic diversity and our ability to adapt to our environment.

Through disproving most of the forementioned benefits and harms in his article, Brock concludes that the pros and cons of human cloning are “sufficiently balanced”; cloning is not a central component to reproductive rights therefore not necessarily morally justified. Conversely, cloning does not seem to violate any particular moral right. Futhermore, even though cloning is capable of causing significant harm to individuals and society, these harms are speculative and does not warrant prohibition of human cloning.

As I was reading through the article, I could not help from feeling that although Brock made some very good points on both sides of the cloning issue that the topic is extremely out of date in the science/medical field. Since 1997, major advances in stem cell research have been made, making it more highly more likely that organs will be grown in labs than in human clones and the need to grow a whole genetic copy of an individual is no longer necessary. Although there may be a small percentage of clones made for privately funded research or, of course, unless all of a sudden we need a clone army, I really believe the scientific community has surpassed and dismissed this technology. But does this fact make the topic any less morally important? No, I think the benefits and harms outlined by Brock in this article could be tailored to such issues as stem cell and embryo splitting and could make a strong point for either side of this issue. I just found myself not as concerned with the topic as perhaps I might have been 10 years ago when it was first presented. Does it seem as outdated a topic to you?

I was also wondering while reading the article why the moral issue of equality was not brought up by Brock. Cloning yourself would be so expensive that it would only be available to a few wealthy individuals, which according to some moral theories is morally unjust as it limits equal opportunity, so therefore would it matter if the practice is unjust, isn’t it is unjust first and foremost in its unequal distribution?

In any case, I think the overall problem Brock faced in this article and we, as a society, face with any of these growing scientific technologies is the vast uncertainty of their effects of individual and societal moral rights. We will not know until they are put to the test and by then would it too late or could we fix it?