“Our lives depend on recognizing that human cloning
like all forms of playing God is a moral life promoting endeavor” — (Alex Epstein)
The scientific and the technological advancements through which we all have undergone has made our lives both shocking and fascinating. Its emergence has created various new reproductive technologies. One of the creations is Human Cloning, which is slightly a new term. Our article certainly aims to find out that if Human Cloning is possible then whether it will infringe basic rights, in layman’s language we call them Human Rights. Before going depth in the discussion, let’s first talk about the meaning of the term “Human Cloning.”
WHAT IS HUMAN CLONING?
Britannica Encyclopedia defines the word “Cloning” as “the process of generating a genetically identical copy of a cell or an organism.”
If this cloning is used for the purpose of creating a human it is termed as Human Cloning. J.B.S. Haldane was the first to introduce the idea of human cloning.
Human Cloning is the biological term which is used to produce a genetically identical copy known as clone of an existing, or previously existing, human being or growing cloned tissue from that individual. Sometimes “Human Cloning” also called “Artificial Human Cloning”
WILL HUMAN CLONING VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS?
Human cloning is one of the means of reproductive and the most plausible moral right or human right which is at stake is reproductive freedom or procreative liberty. Reproductive freedom not only includes the right to choose not to reproduce by the means of contraception or abortion, but also includes the right to reproduce. The right to reproduce further includes the right to choose the various artificial reproductive methods and the techniques by which one’s want to produce, such as in- vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, gamete intra fallopian transfer etc. Human cloning is a new means of reproduction; indeed, its critics see it as more a means of manufacturing humans rather than seeing as a means of reproduction. Human cloning is a different means of reproduction than sexual reproduction but ultimately it is a means that can serve individuals interest in reproducing.
Sometimes human cloning could be the only means for individuals to procreate but in other cases different means of procreating would also be possible. When individuals have alternative means of procreating, human cloning could be chosen because it replicates a particular individual’s genome. The right to reproductive freedom cover at least some choice about the kind of children one will have, for example, genetic testing if an embryo or fetus for genetic disease or abnormality and so forth. The more a reproductive choice is not simply means the determination of oneself and one’s own life but the determination of the nature of another, for example as in the case of human cloning, the moral weight the interests of that other person, that is, the cloned child, should have decisions that determine its nature, but not unlimited, there may be discretion in shaping their child for example, through education and other child rearing decisions. Even if not the part of reproductive freedom then also, the right to raise one’s children as one sees fit, within in limit and mostly determined by the interests of the children. This right includes not just preventing certain diseases that harm to children but also selecting and shaping desirable features and traits in one’s children. There are many ways and the human cloning is the one way to exercise this right. Therefore there is good reason to accept that a right to reproductive freedom includes both a right to select the means of reproduction as well as a right to determine what kind of children to have, by use of human cloning.
Another different moral right which might be at stake while talking about human cloning is the right to freedom of scientific inquiry and research in the acquisition of knowledge. Leaving aside the ethical concern for a moment, here it should be noted that since human cloning is a new phenomenon emerging out, research on human cloning might provide valuable scientific medical knowledge beyond simply knowledge which can be very useful in order to understand how to carry out human cloning. Now coming to the ethical and moral aspect, I think prohibiting and stopping scientific research and inquiry is a serious matter and it will violate the right to free expression.
Another question arises that is there a moral or human right to a unique identity, and if so then whether it would violated by human cloning? For human cloning to violate a right of unique identity, the relevant sense of identity would have to be genetic identity that is a right to a unique unrepeated genome. This would be violated by human cloning, but is there any such right? It might be thought that there could not be such a right, because it would be violated in all cases of identical twins, yet no one claims that the human rights are violated. Even if there is such a right, then also sharing a genome with another individual as a result of human cloning would not violate it. Because, the idea of the uniqueness of each person historically predates the development of modern genetics and the knowledge that expect in the case of homozygous twins, each individual has a unique genome.
CONCLUSION
Human cloning has received little attention and seriousness nowadays because it’s moral and ethical aspect is in question. Although considering the above mentioned facts, In my opinion it is reasonable to say to that human cloning at this time may give great benefits and help to meet great human needs. There are many benefits of human cloning, for instance, it would enable couples in which one party risks transmitting a serious hereditary disease to an offspring, enable individuals to clone someone who had special meaning to them, such as child who had died, enable to get the duplication of individuals of great talent and so forth. No doubt like every other thing, it also have many cons. Government should make the laws so that no one can use this technique in a wrong way or for the wrong purpose. Therefore, I conclude on the basis of number of above mentioned reasons that human cloning would not violate the human rights. Like every other technology and techniques it should be used wisely in order to avail the benefits otherwise it will destroy.
“We have no reason to think that human cloning will not work- it works in primates- but it may take many, many attempts.”— (Wolf Reik)