Human reproductive cloning and biotechnology: Rational, ethical and public concerns
HTML
EPUB
XML
PDF

Keywords

Human reproductive cloning
Biotechnology
Policy
Critical evaluation

Abstract

Previous research indicates a lack of clear international guidelines on the permissibility of embryonic stem cell research and human reproductive cloning. These studies suggest that this is the result of severe criticism from uninformed publics, whose arguments are based on misconceptions influenced by popular literature and science fiction films. However, the current research argues that public cloning attitudes that are based on real social and ethical concerns should be deployed to direct social and legal policy-making on human reproductive cloning. Addressing public concerns about human reproductive cloning is essential in exploring sound avenues for sensible biotechnology and policy-making. The research, on which this article reported, intended to give a critical evaluation of some major arguments for and against human reproductive cloning in order to establish whether or not these arguments hold up well under rational interrogation. Notwithstanding the author’s critical attitude to uninformed opinions, false assumptions and unsound conclusions about the complex issue of human reproductive cloning, the author argued from the perspective that every life phenomenon is inextricably intertwined with everything else, and part of larger complex webs of interactions. Such a perspective recognised that the well-being of other human beings, including future human clones, is not only an existential, social and moral imperative but also epistemological. Against the backdrop of this perspective, critical questions arose that justified the creation of human clones in the face of possible defects and abnormalities in cloned children, as well as the possible harm to societies.
https://doi.org/10.4102/koers.v77i2.412
HTML
EPUB
XML
PDF

Copyright information

  • Ownership of copyright in terms of the Work remains with the authors.
  • The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the Work, provided attribution is given to the place and detail of original publication, as set out in the official citation of the Work published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the Work on the authors’ or their institutions’ websites or institutional repository.

Publication and user license

  • The authors grant the title owner and the publisher an irrevocable license and first right and perpetual subsequent right to (a) publish, reproduce, distribute, display and store the Work in  any form/medium, (b) to translate the Work into other languages, create adaptations, summaries or extracts of the Work or other derivative works based on the Work and exercise all of the rights set forth in (a) above in such translations, adaptations, summaries, extracts and derivative works, (c) to license others to do any or all of the above, and (d) to register the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for the Definitive Work.
  • The authors acknowledge and accept the user licence under which the Work will  be published as set out in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (Creative Commons Attribution License South Africa)
  • The undersigned warrant that they have the authority to license these publication rights and that no portion of the copyright to the Work has been assigned or licensed previously to any other party.

Disclaimer: The publisher, editors and title owner accept no responsibility for any statement made or opinion expressed by any other person in this Work. Consequently, they will not be liable for any loss or damage sustained by any reader as a result of his or her action upon any statement or opinion in this Work. 
In cases where a manuscript is NOT accepted for publication by the editorial board, the portions of this agreement regarding the publishing licensing shall be null and void and the authors will be free to submit this manuscript to any other publication for first publication.

Our copyright policies are author-friendly and protect the rights of our authors and publishing partners.