Is Human Cloning Moral?

Human cloning is moral because it brings about more happiness. For instance, human cloning allows parents to “replicate” a dead or dying child. This creates new life as a partial human answer to the grievous misfortune of their child’s death, and continues the biological lineage of the family. This is moral based on utilitarianism because it successfully fulfills the grieving parent’s wish, creating more happiness. Human cloning could avoid the parent’s disappointment in losing their family line and relieve sorrow, ensuring minimal unhappiness.

Human cloning is moral because it strengthens the human race with more superior beings, benefiting the people. It allows families to reproduce individuals of great genius, talent, or beauty, where these traits are based on superior genetic makeup. Therefore, human cloning is moral as it is an advanced technology to improve the quality of the life of human beings.

Even if it brings out more happiness, it is still not moral because no one enjoys suffering the high risks of being psychologically damaged by growing up as a clone. By applying golden rule, it is immoral by exposing the clone to the health risks during experiments and the psychological harm in the future, without gaining the consent of the clone in the first place.

A cloned child might be 'harmed' through the burden of over-expectation due to the temptation of parents to seek excessive control over the clone. Therefore, it is immoral of the parents to place such burden on the cloned child, since this would not be desirable to the parents if the burden were to be placed on them.

Due to the excessive control, the right and freedom of the clone may subconsciously be violated. This is immoral based on golden rule because no one likes to be deprived of freedom, including the parents, thus they should not violate the rights of the cloned child.

Human cloning would be considered as immoral by Kantian theory when the cloned child is seen as a means only to make the parents happy. With the technology to produce superior cloned child, parents would tend to view their cloned child as an object for them to show off since they have spent money to produce such a clone. This is immoral because it violates the law of respecting humanity and treating it as an end and not simply as means only.

The argument for the psychological harm of a clone is subjective since no one could experience the psychological effect, except the clone himself. The argument is just an assumption. Moreover, it is only valid for some cases since not all cloned child would be affected after finding out their background. This also applies to the case where parents view their child as a means to make them happy; similarly, not all parents would view their cloned child as an asset for them to show off.

The interests of the cloned child justify thoroughgoing parental control over the procreative process. This acts as a possible defense for violating the child’s rights. Procreation could be seen primarily as the free exercise of a parental right, to satisfy parental desires for self-fulfillment or to have a child who is "superior".

In conclusion, human cloning is moral because it benefits the human race and creates more happiness without facing much strong ethical oppositions. For golden rule and Kantian theory, the argument is subjective since it does not apply to all cases of human cloning. Rights cannot be ethically exercised at the expense of the rights of another, thus the argument for violating the rights of a clone could no longer stand firm.