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Suppose an unmarried person A wants a child B. Some theoretical possibilities are (i) adoption, (ii) in vitro fertilization, and (iii) cloning. I wonder why cloning has been universally controversial and never considered even for this purpose.

Human clones would have identical genes, yet how genes are expressed depends biologically on the environment; in addition, even physically similar persons may have significantly different minds due to the unique social path the person goes through when growing up. Whatever way B is raised, the social path cannot be nearly as similar to that of A as if B were an identical twin of A, so B will not face the problem of lacking a unique social identity simply due to the genes. On the other hand, on the side of A as a parent, does it really make a huge difference whether the child shares 50% (option (ii)) or 100% (option(iii)) of A's genes?

Long Horn
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    Natural Vs artificial. Also humans playing god. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Dec 18 '22 at 07:56
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    @Long Horn. I believe that most societies have a moral and legal prohibitions of incest. Certainly, incest is not a good idea, since it tends to result in deterioration of the genetic line. Self-cloning seems very like an extreme form of incest to me; from the genetic point of view, it certainly is. – Ludwig V Dec 18 '22 at 08:40
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    Because humans are responsible for what they do, not for what happens anyway, and so far they are not very good at cloning. Clones come out with all sorts of [defects and health issues](https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Cloning-Fact-Sheet) in animal trials. In contrast, naturally occurring twins are typically identical in terms of health. – Conifold Dec 18 '22 at 10:08
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    @SteveSaban Probably the cloning process will introduce a few variations, just as the splitting process does. – Mary Dec 19 '22 at 02:36
  • Well, it's interesting that *blind evolution* has a built-in mechanism of *natural cloning* (monozygotic twins are clones). The ability to twin *survived* in the population despite its drawbacks (preterm delivery at usually < 37 weeks and the accompanying health issues). I guess those who advocate for *artificial twins* (cloning) aren't quite as far from the well-trodden path of nature as we thought. – Agent Smith Dec 19 '22 at 11:22
  • @Mary, you are correct so I deleted my comment. Thanks for setting me straight –  Dec 19 '22 at 15:51

2 Answers2

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The issue with human cloning is that there will be, with a very high probability, drastic failures. We know this because of the history of animal cloning.

Cloning of domestic animals is now routine in some countries. The goal is to make copies of individuals that happen to have some desirable gene or set of genes. However, there are sometimes significant adverse health effects for the cloned specimens. Partaking in actions that could reasonably be predicted to produce such effects in a human would be quite a problem from an ethical point of view. Doing something that might produce a defective sheep or an abnormally aging chicken is far less concerning than doing it to a human.

Particularly at the early stages, with the first few examples, the chance of producing drastic harm to an individual is quite large.

There are additional considerations that have been beaten-to-death again and again in science fiction stories. Does the clone have rights? Is the clone a human? If a clone is manipulated at the one-to-ten cell stage to not have any brain is it then ethical to grow the brainless body to full size and extract its organs for transplant? Is it even acceptable to do that manipulation? And so on and so forth.

These questions have caused most bio-labs to be very cautious about any research that could involve human cloning or anything related. They are very sensitive, at least in most countries, to being accused of ethically questionable actions. They want to keep their funding and they want to keep the local authorties from shutting them down.

As well, many of the potential benefits to cloning an individual can be obtained through growing cell cultures. For example, lab-grown skin grafts are in phase III trials. It means that burn victims may be able to get a graft from a lab-grown culture of their own skin, thus matching pigment and texture. There have also been significant advancement in other tissues being lab-grown. Heart muscles for example.

So, to summarize: There is significant ethical concern pushing against cloning humans. And the potential benefits are being achieved with other means, thus reducing the postive draw for cloning humans.

BillOnne
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  • If, as in my hypothetical setup, the clone is intended to be raised as a child, then the clone will surely be accepted as a human and given all rights; what unexpected ethical implications will that have? – Long Horn Dec 19 '22 at 19:42
  • (The possibility of a biological failure, though, is a very valid concern, and thanks for reminding me of that issue.) – Long Horn Dec 19 '22 at 19:43
  • @LongHorn That's the Catch 22. The experiments required to perfect human cloning are unethical. Until that changes, human cloning and its benefits are fiction –  Dec 21 '22 at 02:59
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Murder is the most serious of crimes even though human beings die every day, and indeed, inevitably will die. Intent matters enormously when we evaluate acts.

Also, clones are copies of the original, while identical twins do not make it feasible to speak of the original and the copy. This introduces a complication in the social relations between the clone and the person who arranged to clone the original. Whether this person want this clone to be a copy of the original and so raises him as closely as possible to the original -- perhaps even down to abusive conduct to introduce identical trauma -- or to be the original done right, which may lead to even more abusive conduct.

It can be debated whether this would make much of difference from the person's knowing the child is only half the original's DNA, but it seems likely that the only people who would insist on cloning themselves, for instance, are exactly those for whom it would matter.

Mary
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