PubMed · 11647153
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William Safire. 1997-02-27. Clonalities.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11647153/
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Few issues linked to genetic research have raised as much controversial debate as the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer technology to create embryos specifically for stem cell research. Whereas European countries unanimously agree that reproductive cloning should be prohibited there is no agreement to be found on whether or not research into therapeutic cloning should be permitted. Since the UK took the lead and voted in favour of regulations allowing therapeutic cloning the public debate has intensified on the Continent. This debate reflects the wide spectrum of diverse religious and secular moralities that are prevalent in modern multicultural European democratic societies. Arguments range from putting forward strictly utilitarian views that weight the moral issues involved against the potential benefits that embryonic stem cell research may harbour to considering the embryo as a human being, endowed with human dignity and human rights from the moment of its creation, concluding that its use for research is unethical and should be strictly prohibited. Given the current state of dissension among the various European states, it is difficult to predict whether 'non-harmonisation' will prevail or whether in the long run 'harmonisation' of legislation that will allow stem cell research will evolve in the EU.
Therapeutic human cloning has the potential significantly to reduce human suffering and enhance human happiness. This is the main ethical argument in its favour. The main ethical arguments against it centre on questions to do with the moral status of the human embryo. A subsidiary set of arguments arises from the connections between therapeutic human cloning and reproductive cloning. Most of the ethical questions concerning the status of the human embryo have long been examined in the context of abortion, though they are being re-examined in the context of genetic screening and embryo research. A consensus on such matters seems extremely unlikely to result in the near future. The current role of ethicists may not, therefore, be so much to attempt to produce a definitive answer to the question of the status of the human embryo at the very early developmental stages at which therapeutic human cloning would take place, but more to help clarify arguments and indicate the implications of particular approaches. That is what this paper seeks to do.
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