Cloning This presentation is to explain the arguments against the cloning of humans.

Cloning Cloning is a method of asexual reproduction. The offspring is genetically identical to the parent.

Murder To carry out human cloning it would be necessary to kill human embryos. This is still murder and is still ethically wrong. Embryos will be created for the specific purpose of later murdering them.

Risk There is almost universal agreement that human cloning is not safe at present. Embryos will be killed in the process but the Hippocratic oath involves the fundamental medical principle that one will do no harm. Killing the embryos is clearly harm. Cloned animals show a high rate of abnormalities and the cell donor and the surrogate mother can be put at risk by the procedure.

Playing God It is not right to interfere with natural order. Cloning may be used to determine the appearance and other characteristics of the child that may be produced. Humans were made stewards of the earth, not rulers of it. Our duty is to protect the earth and the life on it. It is not our right to change and modify it.

Eugenics Human cloning may result in the eventual development of eugenics. It may become the beginning of brave new world. Different castes of people: their place determined not only by birth and parents but by their own genetics. Different people specially engineered for their own specific tasks and maybe even given only the abilities that a necessary for that job and nothing else. Eugenics is wrong and is an infringement of basic human rights.

Human Dignity Reproductive cloning would be an insult to human dignity. In a religious view: humans have been made in the image of God. Reproductive cloning would interfere with this. A violation of human dignity would also be an offence to God.

Manufactured Products Cloning would reduce humans to mere manufactured products. Theoretically, a particularly “good” embryo could have its genes patented and then used to produce clones for profit. Control over physical identity of someone violates human rights and would affect their individuality. Cloning could give an unacceptable amount of power over a clone that may be produced.

Kinship A clone’s “parent” could actually be a genetic twin. The genetic material would be identical to that of the “parent” so an apparent grandparent would, in fact, be the clone’s own parent. Problems of legislation may arise in matters of inheritance and similar events.

Demographic Changes Large scale cloning may alter the demographic structure of the population of a country. Mass cloning could result in a serious imbalance of genders and of age groups.