Human Reproductive Cloning - Brutes or Angels: Human Possibility in the Age of Biotechnology - page 191

terial used to produce a clone is the product of two parents—the biological
mother and father of the cloned person.
Objection 7. Cloning could cause a gradual, unplanned, stratification of
society, even under non-malevolent governments, into a group of finan-
cially, intellectually, or otherwise elite, cloned persons who might main-
tain political and social control over the less privileged.
This objection raises the concern that human cloning might lead to the pur-
poseful or unplanned emergence of either persons lacking the autonomy
and rights possessed by other persons, or persons that threaten the au-
tonomy of the rest of us. The two scenarios are often depicted in films and
novels about clones in which societies use clones as slaves or are somehow
endangered by clones.
similar scenarios in real life have unfolded many times during human
history without cloning. The existence of underprivileged or exploited
groups is unjust, and strong means should be used to rectify it where it still
occurs. But cloning does not pose a unique danger in this regard. Cloning
as a means for producing large numbers of like people is not feasible be-
cause of the vast array of non-genetic influences that contribute to shaping
adult individuals. in fact, a malevolent dictator wishing to control masses of
people would be better off using a chemical akin to Aldous huxley's (1932)
soma than undertaking mass cloning.
Objection 8. human cloning violates human dignity.
That human cloning violates human dignity is the broadest and most am-
biguous objection to cloning that is commonly cited in policy statements.
sometimes human dignity is equated with having genetic uniqueness (ob-
jection 4), enjoying an open future for one's life (objection 5), or entering
the world via a natural process (objection 6). At other times human dig-
nity is invoked at the community level, and concerns are raised about the