This article argues that human cloning technology could threaten the dignity of life and the existing social order, and that even if it has scientific benefits, it should not be allowed due to ethical concerns.
While the development of modern biomedical science and technology has brought us numerous benefits, including the extension of human life and the improvement of quality of life, it has also raised new and unprecedented issues, such as genetic manipulation. This leads to the search for various solutions on ethical, legal, and social levels, and the study of these issues is called bioethics. The discipline of bioethics developed in the 1970s in the United States, where American scholar Porter defined bioethics as a new discipline that intertwines biological knowledge with human value systems.
Interest in bioethics expanded significantly with the success of the world’s first mammalian cloning in 1997, starting with cell cloning, then reptile cloning, and finally reptile cloning. The success of mammalian cloning made it easy to extend the idea that human cloning would be possible by applying this technology to humans. However, there is a major objection to human cloning because the resulting human entity is very different from the natural process of human birth, and it is an intentional creation of a specific human being for a specific purpose. In addition, the question arises whether the human cloned by genetic engineering is the same human being. Of course, they would be genetically identical, but as we see with identical twins, they are thought to be different human beings with different personalities.
So, let’s take a look at how to genetically engineer a cloned human being. Generally speaking, human cloning is done using the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer. This method involves removing the nucleus from a woman’s spare egg and implanting it with the nucleus of the somatic cell to be cloned. The resulting embryo is called a “somatic cell cloning embryo,” which is then implanted in the surrogate mother’s uterus to develop into a fetus. This method means that a life can be created without the union of a sperm and an egg, and cloning is equivalent to creating a genetically identical human being.
The use of genetic engineering to create cloned humans disrupts the order of human civilization. The human order of life that has been in place for thousands of years is the union of a man and a woman to produce children and form a family, and the aggregation of such families to form human society. Human cloning technology is unacceptable because it shakes the foundations of this most basic human order.
In addition to these general objections to human cloning, there are a number of scientific and ethical objections to human cloning technology. First, there are scientific reasons why human cloning is unlikely to succeed, including the problem of premature aging. For mammalian cloning, which is similar to human cloning, the success rate is less than 5%. Cloned animals are often born with deformities, especially in the heart or brain. If human cloning technology is applied, there are ethical issues that arise, such as who would be responsible for a baby born with a deformity? There is also the issue of premature aging. Due to the nature of transplanting the nucleus of an already adult cell, studies have shown that cloned individuals age faster than normal individuals.
However, in response to these scientific objections, some people have argued that “if the science is perfect to address the current risks of human cloning, then we should be in favor of human cloning.” This argument can be convincingly rebutted with ethical arguments against human cloning.
In addition to the scientific arguments, the ethical arguments I will present provide an opportunity to rethink the validity of human cloning. Children without natural parents, created through human cloning, disrupt the family, the fundamental structure and foundation of society. Due to the nature of human cloning using nuclear transfer technology, cloned humans cannot identify their parents. They need someone to provide an egg, someone to provide somatic cells, and someone to accept the fertilized egg and carry the pregnancy to term. This blurring of the concept of family affects the basic structure of society and is therefore ethically untenable.
Human cloning is also a huge ethical problem because it “instrumentalizes” human beings. All human beings born naturally by the union of parents have fundamental human rights and dignity. However, cloned human beings created for intentional purposes are a grave violation of human dignity, which requires us to “treat human beings as ends, not means.” The dichotomy between naturally born humans and artificially cloned humans is likely to lead to social discrimination. This dualization threatens to destroy the unity of humanity and undermine the moral foundation of humanity through unjust discrimination. One could argue that there is no reason to discriminate against cloned humans because they have only minor differences from naturally born humans in their birth process. However, society is made up of a wide variety of people, and it is very possible that discrimination against cloned humans could be shaped by strongly held values or religious beliefs.
Of course, those in favor of human cloning also offer a variety of arguments. The two main reasons given in favor of human cloning are the ability to cure diseases or physical disabilities that cannot be treated by modern medicine and the solution to the problem of infertility. My argument in this article is against the cloning of human “individuals”. The artificial creation of new human beings to treat specific human beings is opposed on social, scientific, and ethical grounds. However, the creation of new organs for therapeutic purposes, such as adult stem cell technology or reverse differentiation stem cell technology, creates partial organs rather than whole individuals, which is a counterargument to the first reason. Also, it is not possible to solve the problem of infertility through human cloning. The birth of a child is a 50/50 mix of the parents’ genes, and the child takes on the characteristics of both parents. However, human cloning does not give birth to a child with the genes of two people, but rather a cloned individual, so the concept of ‘child’ is highly diluted, making it impossible.
As you can see, there are plenty of intrinsic objections, scientific objections, and ethical objections to human cloning technology. I have also refuted two of the arguments in favor of human cloning. In the process, we have shown that we support the development of adult stem cell technology or reverse differentiation stem cell technology for therapeutic purposes, but not the cloning of human ‘individuals’. Even if the research is of great benefit to humans, it is unlikely to be justified from a bioethical perspective if it harms human dignity. A thorough bioethical perspective should be adopted in many new studies, and the cloning of human “individuals” should be strictly prohibited to protect human dignity, as it is not justified from a bioethical perspective.
