Human or Not Human:

The main ethical concern in regards to human therapeutic cloning is the act of cloning an embryo not as an offspring but as a precursor to a medical treatment that may save lives. This act raises two questions.

1. Can an embryo be considered as a human being?
2. Does a clone have the same rights as a human being?

Although decades old, the Belmont Report is still used today as an effective guideline in research involving human beings. The purpose of these guidelines is to ensure that human rights, decency and well being are protected in the case whereby a human being is essential to a research. Although human rights and decency covers a very broad spectrum, it still requires that the subject in question is a self aware human being which is capable of experiencing emotions, more importantly that of pain which would violate the principle of "do no harm".

So if an embryo is considered to be a human being then it would fall under and violate the guidelines that are set forth from the Belmont Report, to harm a human being for the purpose of research would be considered ethically unacceptable, so where do we draw the line between developing cells and a sentient human being? When the egg is first fertilized? After the first trimester of development? After the baby is born?

Can it be established that pluripotent cells have awareness of their surroundings? Even though it has the potential to be a self-aware individual, there is no evidence however that embryonic cell development (which falls within 14 days of conception) is equal to a self-aware human being, because of that, there is no evidence of present harm to an individual when conducting research onto human embryonic cells.

Furthermore the idea pain and suffering is a subjective feeling that is learnt through experience existing in a self aware state. A child learns pain after a certain amount of time of existence in a realized human condition.

Thus, what more cloned embryonic copies of an individual? Does it fall under human rights laws? The answer would still be the same, cloned copy or not, human embryos do not have what human beings have, self awareness and as such, incapable of suffering the same way a human being does. If the clone does grow to be a full living breathing human being however, then they would have the same rights, decency and respect as with another other human being.

Utilitarian Principles:

Another question posed in human therapeutic cloning is whether the ends justify the means. Does act of saving thousands or perhaps millions of present lives justify the act of sacrificing potential self aware human beings? Already early stem cell research has shown progress in treating those suffering from spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and Type-II Diabetes.

As an example without touching human therapeutic cloning, if a husband was suffering from kidney failure and would die without a kidney transplant and the wife is able to donate her kidney but is pregnant and any transplant is fatal to the fetus. Given the fact that the wife gives consent to the abortion to save her husband by donating her kidney, is it ethically right to do so?

The question that should be asked is how long does the husband have to live with a new kidney? If he lives for another sixty years, it could be considered a justified act. If the husband would have six months left despite the transplant, the consent to sacrificing the foetus for the husband would be unethical.

The same concept can be applied in the case of cloned human embryos for the purpose of saving a life of a person. In this case, the embryo is directly responsible for the life or a person, which would give a greater value to the sacrifice of the embryo which I stated beforehand cannot be considered as a self-aware individual. If the patient has a chance to live for another 30 to 40 years of a normal healthy life, then there is no wrong in using a cloned embryo as a therapeutic agent to cure the patient, rather than let the patient die because the embryo has become a moral agent.

In addition to a whether the ends justify the means, naysayers would quote philosopher Immanuel Kant in that the "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end." This gives the rise to the interpretation that Kantian philosophy has a negative view of creating life simply for the purpose of a means to an end because life itself is an end and never a means to something.

However, it is my understanding from the first argument that while embryos have the potential to be human, they are not to be considered as people or part of humanity therefore not an end. It is also my understanding that if you were to have a child by natural means for the sole purpose of harvesting the bone marrow and saving your present child from death by cancer; it would be ethically unacceptable by Kantian standards. In the case of human therapeutic cloning, your purpose is to create the cure itself and not a child in mind. Thus it cannot be subjected to the ethical responses that Kant suggests.

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