Dolly and the cloned cows are still mostly novelty items. However, to clone an animal intended for breeding or human consumption does not seem to actually cross too many ethical lines. It is not significantly different than cross-breeding to improve genetic lines. As long as it doesn’t lead to abusive practices, this could have a very positive effect if the cost can be controlled.
Human cloning raises several huge moral dilemmas. I suppose it would be the ultimate ego boost to not only have your son named after you, but to be an exact genetic copy. Once and for all, we could tackle the nurture vs. nature questions. For someone to have one copy running around is one thing, but with cloning you could mass produce yourself. If you had the financial ability and enough willing females, you could make many reproductions. This would create huge problems in the crime solving business that depends on DNA to effectively prosecute some offenders.
What about who would actually be culpable here? The one who did the crime, or the one who produced the duplicate. How about stealing a cell or two from someone and producing a clone to be your slave? That raises another whole line of discussion. Would clones be really treated like people? We don’t usually treat a photocopy like an original.
I know some will see this as apples and oranges, but think about it. Someone could go to some third world country with a few hundred thousand dollars and some frozen tissue. Once there, they would solicit some starving families to sell them their teen daughters. They would be used as egg donors and ovens for baking new humans. Only these would be clones of someone considered to be only good for hard labor or menial tasks. In fifteen years, the first clones would go to the mines or the fields or become lab rats. Year after year these would be produced. Their DNA would become cycled again and again.
I won’t even approach the religious questions because each religion would have their own set of problems with this practice. But, the questions of souls and playing God abound in this arena.
Just suppose that someone really loved their little baby. It needed a kidney or liver or heart or the organ de jour. So, a little flesh is removed, and a clone is produced. The needed organs are harvested, and the remains are destroyed. As long as a surrogate is used, the parents need not ever have contact with the woman or the baby. There are enough unsavory people to make this happen. People already bootleg organs. Can you imagine the horrors?
