Question

What are Dan W. Brock's best quotes on human cloning?

Answer 1

According to Dan W. Brock, the ethical pros and cons of human cloning are sufficiently balanced. He tries to take a neutral stance on the subject and give both positives and negatives of human cloning.

Some of his best quotes on human cloning are :-

• "Human cloning seems not to be the unique answer to any great or pressing human need and its benefits appear to be limited at most."
• "Cloning is not a central component of the moral right to reproductive freedom and it does not uniquely serve any major or pressing individual or societal needs."
• "There may be other moral rights in conflict with this right, or serious enough harms from human cloning to override the right to use it."
• " Human cloning would produce psychological distress and harm in the later twin. No doubt knowing the path in life taken by one's earlier twin might often have several bad psychological effects. "
• "Since we have no experience with human cloning and the creation of earlier and later twins. Nevertheless, if experience with human cloning confirmed that serious unavoidable psychological harms typically occurred to the later twin, that would be a serious moral reason to avoid the practice. "
• "Choosing to create the latter twin with serious psychological burdens instead of a different person who would be free of them, without weighty overriding reasons for choosing the former, would be morally irresponsible or wrong....... "
• "​​​​​​...... parents of a child dying of a fatal disease would find it insensitive and ludicrous to be told they should not grieve for their coming loss because it is possible to replace him by cloning him, it is their child who is dying whom they love and value, and that child and his importance to them is not replaceable by a cloned later twin. "
• "First, there is always considerable uncertainty about the nature and importance of the new scientific or medical knowledge to which a dramatic new technology like human cloning will lead. ...... Second, we do not know what new knowledge from human cloning or human cloning research could also be gained by other means that do not have the problematic moral features to which its opponents object. Third, what human cloning research would be compatible with ethical and legal requirements for the use of human subjects in research is complex, controversial, and largely unexplored. Creating human clones solely for the purpose of research would be to use them solely for the benefit of others without their consent, and so unethical. "
• "It is reasonable to conclude at this time that human cloning does not seem to promise great benefits or uniquely to meet great human needs. "