Human cloning: A potential solution to infertility and aging

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  Quantumrun Foresight
• August 10, 2022

Insight summary

Human cloning, initially driven by grief and personal loss, is emerging as a field with both promising and perilous possibilities. The emotional desire to recreate lost loved ones is pushing forward cloning research, but raises ethical concerns and risks of exploitation by scientists. This trend, alongside potential commercialization, could profoundly change societal perceptions of human life and rights, demanding new legal and ethical frameworks.

Human cloning context

The scientific magazine Nature published a report on the birth of the first animal cloned from adult cells, a sheep dubbed Dolly, on February 23, 1997. Dolly was formed by taking an egg from a sheep, extracting its DNA-carrying nucleus, merging this egg with a cell from another animal, and electrifying the new cell with electricity. The egg was implanted in a sheep’s uterus after 250 futile attempts and developed into a healthy lamb. Dolly’s creation quickly shifted the focus of cloning technology onto people, with governments worldwide hastening to outlaw human cloning, a practice that had never been done or even attempted as of March 2022.

Certain significant technical advancements between now and the early 2000s make attempts at human cloning more feasible. Despite the significant hazards, cloning is becoming a realistic possibility due to developments in the use of induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) cells and recent advancements in producing germ cells from stem cells. IPS cells can be engineered to be a person’s genetic clone. In the future, IPS cells will likely successfully produce human eggs and sperm, which might then be used for in vitro fertilization, where embryos are placed in a surrogate. 

However, there are still technical obstacles to overcome concerning human cloning, such as female IPS cells lacking the Y chromosome required to generate sperm in the lab. Human embryos created from IPS cells, either passively or actively through the production of sperm/eggs, may have substantial epigenetic modifications that compromise normal human development. 

Scientists may not realize the disastrous effects of cloning a person until it is attempted. For example, scientists have discovered that some embryos die before being implanted. Others lead to miscarriages. Those that survive are more likely to die soon after delivery or have severe defects. These dangers are far simpler to accept when cloning creatures other than human beings.

Disruptive impact

Parents grieving the loss of a child might see cloning as a way to recreate the lost bond, potentially fueling support for human cloning research. This emotional drive could provide a significant boost to the field, with volunteers readily offering to participate in research processes like egg collection and surrogacy. However, this trend raises ethical concerns, as the motives for cloning move beyond scientific curiosity to deeply personal and emotional reasons.

At the same time, the possibility of exploitation by scientists with hidden agendas poses a significant risk. These researchers might manipulate individuals' grief and loss to advance their cloning experiments, raising ethical questions about consent and intention. Additionally, the potential failure of these experiments poses a threat to public trust in medical professionals. Cloned humans could suffer from severe health issues, including pain from genetic defects and increased mortality risks, which could erode confidence in the medical field and highlight the need for stringent ethical guidelines in cloning research.

Furthermore, the commercialization of human cloning could lead to profound societal changes. If cloning becomes a business, it may alter the perception of human life, potentially treating clones as commodities rather than individuals. This could lead to a scenario where clones are considered inferior, possibly resulting in diminished rights and societal status compared to naturally born humans. 

Implications of human cloning 

Wider implications of advancing human cloning science may one day include:

• The super-rich dedicating resources to clone themselves and pass on their consciousness so they could, in effect, live forever. Such a scenario could add another dimension to the existing wealth divide in society.
• Applying cloning tech to clone body parts compatible with amputees, potentially replacing prosthetics altogether.
• A designer baby industry emerging where parents dictate what features they want their children to have. These babies could be gestated in a mother’s womb or in an artificial womb.
• Cultures in developed nations where cloning becomes available may lose or reinterpret their relationships with traditional religions as perspectives related to life and death may evolve with the introduction of clones in society.
• A wide range of new legislation regulating how clones are created and for what reasons. Existing legislation of all kinds will also have to be updated to protect the rights of cloned individuals.
• Select nations may breed humans with distinct physical characteristics to serve specific economic/labor functions in society, from physical labor to detailed scientific work to military service. Such a scenario could lead to the development of a modern caste system, similar to the caste system that once existed in India.

Questions to consider

• Do you believe the benefits of human cloning could outweigh its negative aspects?
• Could human cloning be humanity’s way of overcoming natural selection?
• Do you believe human cloning to be a moral or immoral exercise? And why?