Some forms of medical help are more invasive than others. With in-vitro fertilization, the sperm and egg are combined in a lab and surgically implanted in the womb. Less than two decades ago, a similar concern was raised over the ethical issues involving test-tube babies. Today, nearly 30,000 such babies have been born in the United States alone. This miracle has made many parents happy. So what principle says that one combination of genetic material in a flask is acceptable, but not another?
Nature clones people all the time. Approximately one in 1000 births is an identical twin. However, despite how many or how few individual characteristics twins have in common, they are still different people. They have their own identities, their own thoughts, and their own rights. They enter different occupations, get different diseases, and have different experiences with marriage, alcohol, community leadership, etc. Twins have different personalities as would cloned individuals. Even if someone cloned several Napoleons, each would be different and even more unique than twins; the cloned child would be raised in a different setting. Therefore, cloning does not rob individuals of their personality.
Perhaps the strongest ethical argument against cloning is that it could lead to a new, unfamiliar type of family relationship. We have no idea what it would be like to grow up as the child of parents who seem to know you from the inside. Some psychological characteristics may be biologically, or genetically, based. The parent would know in advance what crises a cloned teenager could go through and how he or she will respond. Because the parents may understand what the child is going through, to greater degree than most parents, it may produce a good and loving relationship in the long run. On the other hand, most children want to have their own space. Simply because a family relationship is new and untried is no reason to automatically condemn it. In the past, many types of family relationships were considered harmful, but later showed to cause no harm to the children. Among these is joint custody after divorce, gay and lesbian parenting, and interracial adoption. As with adoption, in-vitro fertilization, and the use of donor sperm, how the child will react to the news about his or her arrival in this world will depend on how the parents feel about their mode of reproduction. Parents and children may adjust to cloning far more easily than we might think, just as it happened with in-vitro fertilization.
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