The main complaint about reproductive cloning is that we do not really know the consequences, such the the person produced may have a very short expected life span or serious health issues. This is really unrelated to the arguments for or against elective abortion.
well, not entirely unrelated. i think we established that health of the fetus or mother is one of the primary reasons abortions happen in 3rd trimester regardless of policy.
"we do not really know the consequences" in terms of health of most newborns in advance. certainly not before conception, and not for some time after. we have a good estimate based on past experience. not so much with cloning, but similarly no evidence against it.
Deontological
- the child has a right to a unique genetic make-up
- the child has a right to ignorance of the effect of one’s genome on one’s future
- cloning violates the Kantian categorical imperative by treating the child as a mere means (????)
i could claim i have a right to horse-shaped flowers too, but there needs to be a good reason for this "right", rather than simply beginning with the conclusion that "x is bad" and working backwards to make statements which imply "x is bad".
also, the 3rd bullet point doesn't hold. people treat children as means vs not regardless of cloning.
Societal
- totalitarian regimes would use it to make super soldiers or something
i don't think totalitarian regimes will care about our laws regardless, they will do what they want. a country that will detain/kill people for expressing an opinion they don't agree with does not strike me as one where cloning is the most pressing ethical concern. not to us, and certainly not to them lol.
Teleological
- humans have a natural essence or telos which they are meant to fulfill or strive for in order to be genuinely human
this isn't even relevant to cloning specifically.
cloning and designing our children will transform procreation into a process similar to manufacturing, thereby altering the attitudes of parents toward their children
this is something at least worth considering, but it's not clear to me that it's necessarily bad.
i also anticipate some form of "designer babies" independent of cloning as soon as it's possible. i estimate that the moment these things are possible at scale/reasonable cost (aka within means of significant % of people) it will start with merely preventing debilitating disease or other issues. it will be very, very hard to ethically/politically argue that parents can't ensure their kid won't die a painful death after 2 years. but from there, some places will start offering strength or intelligence or w/e (if possible to that degree of nuance) and while there will be objections, i don't see how they can hold up legally across 50 states with any consistency.
i would also much rather this choice in the hands of individuals than the government, again.
on that note, risk of government mandating certain traits be in children is chilling, but that's a separate issue from cloning (absent further editing) being illegal/unethical in its own right.
My opinion is that none of these really matter. Once the tech has progressed to the point that it is possible, the urge to reproduce is so strong that some country will allow it and everyone who wants it will go there.
this i agree with, but on reflection i expect designer babies are a larger risk factor than cloning, unless for some reason a sufficient degree of nuance wrt them is unattainable.
But, there are few freedoms being restricted, since preventing cloning is not the same as directly affecting a woman's body via legal mechanisms.
this distinction isn't as obvious as it seems in reading quoted post, even generally. all kinds of legislation we readily accept influences our bodies via said legal mechanisms, and do so as directly as abortion legislation. these things can directly dictate where you sleep at night, whether you can go where you want, or what is physically done to you in emergency situations.
one could even make an argument that preventing cloning is worse, because its prevention is not being done with the justification of protecting another person. instead, it is more along the lines of the country legally preventing women from reproducing. there is no "person" other than the woman/potential clone source in this hypothetical. whereas with abortion legislation, you're at least attempting to demonstrate that the rights of one individual is at odds with another, and arguing the tradeoffs.
Usually the restriction on cloning will be framed around not forcing someone into existence if they'll be at a severe disadvantage.
this has two problems:
- it's not clear a clone will actually be at a disadvantage, at all
- it has horrible implications for reproductive rights generally if the logic of "will be at a severe disadvantage" is extended. for example, if the clone will be healthy, it's hard to believe it will be at a disadvantage in a wealthy family with strong education when compared to a randomly selected person near the poverty line having a child. and we've already demonstrated that children with single parents are at a big disadvantage...the implications if *that* were to be codified against are not something i'm comfortable with. even if i do believe we should stop incentivizing that situation, this is extremely different legally and ethically.
