Should Human Reproductive Cloning Be Legal

The matter of human reproductive cloning is a complex topic, in which there are many issues that must be addressed before any actions take place. Any decision based on reproductive cloning will not be clear-cut, and instead will host a multitude of ideas. In this paper, I will determine, through philosophical thinking, if human reproductive cloning is morally appropriate.

First and foremost, it is important to discuss what human cloning is. It is the conception of in vitro embryos that produces “individuals that are exact genetic copies of the donor from whom the DNA was obtained” (Munson 366). In Laymen’s terms, cells are inserted from the donor host into an unfertilized egg from another host (meaning it is asexual) and the new egg is transferred into the surrogate mother where it will foster into an embryo, if effective.

There are some rewards and disadvantages to utilizing human reproductive cloning. One advantage would be giving a woman who was not able to find the right person to have a child with, the child she had wanted. In “Mothers by Choice” there are many professional women, who before, would have to settle with ”Mr. Okay” to have a child (Munson 335). Now, marriage is not necessary to allow working women a child and they would not have to settle or put their ambitions to the wayside.

One disadvantage would certainly be like the Calvert Case. A couple was determined to have a child, however, the mother had a hysterectomy removing her uterus and therefore was not able to carry a child to term. Instead, the couple turned to a surrogate who would carry the child. Unfortunately, the surrogate felt that she should be a mother to the child as well, and took the case to court (Munson 348). The courts decided that since the c...

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...uld not want or desire to be manipulated in spite of cloning experimentation. By disrupting a process that can cause harm to many, we ensure that we are acting how we wish to be treated.

Finally, our course of action should be to legally ban human reproductive cloning. This decision will not be detrimental to anyone, nor will it abuse or exploit anyone. This action will be indicative of moral standards that we should wish everyone would follow. Ultimately, ethics is far greater than law. Ethical reflections are more significant than legal ideas because it is likely that laws themselves can show to be corrupt and inconsistent with honorable ethics. Therefore, we as a society must analyze the law in an ethical point of view, such as the case of reproductive cloning.

Works Cited

Munson, R. 2014. Intervention and reflection. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.