Here are 10 sets of questions that may help us think this practice through and through.
- If only one parent becomes necessary for reproduction, what social structure will be required to see that two adults are normally responsible for the support of a child? If the second parent is only “on the hook” as a matter of contract and not as a matter of a shared life, what will keep that parent sacrificing in the lean years?
- Should the law impose on the cloner secondary duties of child support and visitation. Why is there any less duty of support for the cloner than on a “father” who is liable for 18 years of support for contributing nothing more to a child’s life than sperm. The cloner specifically intended a child.
- Should the amount of child support for which the cloner is liable be based on the mother’s standard of living or on the cloner’s standard of living.
- We would be put off if an eccentric rich guy decided to make 100 clones of Putin or Elon. But these men control great wealth and have little common sense. If the law allows cloning of individual human beings for humanitarian purposes, does anyone think that the law could then prevent Kardashians from plaguing the 21st century with new yapping Kardashians if her or their ? vanity demanded it.
- Surrogate motherhood, in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination already separate reproduction from sex but genetic biodiversity is not adversely impacted because the male contribution to the DNA is still present. With cloning will biologic homogeneity provide avenues for epidemic diseases similar to what the Irish potato did to Ireland in the 19th century?
- People die prematurely. There are divorces, accidents, murders. One of the wonderful things about courtship, followed by marriage, then sex and then children is that a child has not only two parents but two families – multiple grandparents, in-laws, cousins, and siblings. This support structure can step in when one or both parents fail. If a child is intentionally created with only half of that support structure, to whom will the child turn when the other half fails?
- May a cloned human being be held in slavery? If not, can a child be cloned for the purpose of a tissue match for the parent? Assuming that use of the child for that purpose entails some risk or pain, who will give informed consent? If it is the parent have we not in effect sanctioned slavery, that is, using another human being as a means – not empowering that human being as an end in herself.
- If there is no need for men in family formation what social consequences can we predict from an increase in the number of families without a father?
- The fertility rate is quickly dropping in America. Is the population now dropping so quickly that the usual, virtually free and pleasurable method of producing children needs to be supplemented by hyper-expensive methods? Couldn’t this be handled by simply encouraging adoption. Is the problem lack of children or vanity?
- Is the vanity of a person who simply won’t mix his genes with another – if not in bed at least in the test tube – an important interest that needs to be humored by society? Is character development enhanced if those wishing to create children were required to develop social skills creating children in the context of a family?
Let me close with a musing from John Donne. Please imagine the cloner absorbing these thoughts from her patient.
Muse not that by thy mind my body’s led
For by thy mind my mind’s distempered.
So thy cares live long, for I, bearing part,
It eats not only thine, but my swollen heart.
And when it gives us intermission
We take new hearts for it to feed upon.
I look forward to some answers to these questions.