Eight Problems with Human Cloning

(1) Human cloning is contrary to the right of the child to grow up in a loving family. The

Pontifical Council on the Family in its document on cloning recognizes that “every human being has the right to be born from the integral love – physical and spiritual – of a father and a mother, to receive their care, to be accepted by his parents as a gift and to be raised by them.”

To deny this right is to destroy the very foundation of the family.1

(2) Human cloning confuses the role of the parents. A woman could create a copy of herself without the need of man for reproduction. How then would the donor be related to the child? Can you be a “father” or “mother” to a copy of yourself?

(3) The cloned person is in danger of losing his personal identity. A cloned person would be subject to all sorts of expectations. People would expect the clone to be just like his “parent” in personality, talents and achievements.

(4) The process of human cloning makes science the absolute judge over life and death. When we give scientists the moral freedom to clone humans they become the judge of which embryos live to become mature children and which die in a lab. Such life and death decisions are based on whether it is good for scientific research.2

(5) Human cloning favors eugenics. Some advocates for human cloning extol the idea that it will allow us to improve humanity by weeding out those with possible genetic disorders and the less intelligent. Allowing human cloning would enable the rich elites to reproduce themselves while depriving the poor in undeveloped nations of this ability.3

(6) Human cloning treats a human person as a manufactured product. Human cloning separates procreation from any loving human relationship. If the human embryo can be produced in a scientific laboratory at will, is it any different from a car produced on an assemble line? The embryo is simply a spare part to be used or disposed of by scientists.

(7) The process to create human clones destroys countless human embryos. The scientists who artificially reproduced “Dolly” the sheep produced 276 sheep embryos before cloning one sheep successfully. How many human embryos do scientists kill to successfully produce one child?4

(8) The possible side effects of human cloning are unknown. Scientists have already discovered that “Dolly” the sheep suffered from advance forms of arthritis and other ailments not known by normal sheep. Because of “Dolly’s” condition scientists destroyed her in 2003.

Human cloning could likewise produce mutations and diseases previously unknown to man.

Human Life International Inc. ® © 2004