Читать книгу Bioethics - Группа авторов - Страница 92

Can one then appeal instead to the unreliability of the outcome to argue that there should be a legal ban on human cloning where the goal is to produce a person? That is an ethically difficult question. On the one hand, with regard to the “high embryonic and gestational losses compared to natural mating and assisted reproduction,” it is very doubtful that many women would make an informed choice to run those risks associated with cloning, but if a woman had a very strong desire to produce a cloned individual, or was willing to take part in such an experiment if adequately compensated, then it is hard to see how “embryonic and gestational losses” could justify a legal prohibition.

On the other hand, the situation differs as regards failures “to successfully make the transition to extra‐uterine life,” since there the crucial issue is whether cloning may lead to the death of a neo‐Lockean person. That in turn depends on the answer to the scientific question of when developing humans acquire the capacities that are relevant to neo‐Lockean personhood – especially the capacity for thought.

When I surveyed the scientific evidence many years ago (1983, 347–412), it seemed to me that both the psychological and the neurophysiological evidence supported the conclusion that the capacity for thought is only acquired postnatally. It may be that current evidence supports the opposite conclusion, in which case there would be grounds for not allowing human cloning until techniques are improved to eliminate failures “to successfully make the transition to extra‐uterine life.” Or perhaps we do not yet have a definitive answer to the scientific question, in which case a legal prohibition would be in order until either we do have an answer, or until cloning techniques are appropriately improved.