Cloning opens up doors previously closed (and locked) to childless families.

• Infertile couples as well as same-gender couples would have the option of having a child of 'their own flesh and blood'.
• If one member carries a gene for a disease, cloning using a donor cell from the other member would almost wipe out the risk of them having a child with that genetic defect.

It isn't just a leap in the way of science and technology. It is a giant leap forward for medical science and technology.

• Cloning may provide scientists with a better insight to genetic diseases.
• Heart transplants and test-tube babies were similarly objected against when they were first introduced. These scientific breakthroughs were later widely accepted. Why can't cloning follow in their footsteps?
  • "Public hostility to human reproductive cloning may be based on an 'illogical and transient fear of a new technology.' "

    - BioNews quoting the British Medical Association.
    

• A ban on cloning would effectively deprive people of the right to reproduce and restrict the freedom of scientists. The latter will be contrary to what scientists have in mind initially - to develop science and technology with no given limits.
  • "...if the [constitutional] right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person, as the decision whether to bear or beget a child."

    - The Supreme Court of the United States of America
    

Although we know little about how closely linked our personalities are to our genetic make, it is generally agreed that an individual is not shaped by genes alone.

• Even if someone decided to produce a clone using Hitler's genes, the output may not be the Hitler we are all so familiar with. Brought up in a gentler environment where social and racial equality is emphasized, the Hitler clone may not turn out to be Hitler himself.

  Essentially, the environment in which an individual grows up in plays as much, if not more, of an important role in the resulting personality of the individual.

As for the ethical and moral issues...

• The clone would be give as much legal right as any other human twin or human produced by other reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilisation.
• An embryo is a ball of cells, with the potential to develop into a whole human being because the cells are still in their blank state (have not assumed any definitions), and will be able to develop into any part of a human body. However, it must be noted that at this point in time, it is NOT a whole human being. It is devoid of conciousness, less to say thought or feeling. More importantly, it has hardly any history to it, unlike a comatose human being. This makes it just as much a bunch of skin cells or a bunch of muscle cells as it is a bunch of cells which may develop into anything else that is required to form an entire human being.
• The word 'natural' takes an arbitrary standard according to the individual. (In-vitro fertilization was previously considered to be un-natural, but is now a widely accepted reproduction technology.)

  In fact, cloning is carried out by Mother Nature as well. Some organisms, including certain snails and shrimp, reproduce only through cloning. Identical twins are also clones. Cloning can be therefore seen as a human extension of what Nature apparently permits.

• In all possibilities, a clone would be as much of a human, and have as much of a soul as a natural twin.
• How is human dignity an issue in cloning?
• In view of fairness and equal opportunity to all, isn't it unreasonable to let only fertile heterosexual couples have children? Wouldn't that be akin to a case scenario where clothes are given out solely by a central authority, and only people with money are given the 'right' to buy them? Clothes can be considered a gift rather than a necessity as well, since we are born into the world without clothes and they are not an essential to our basic survival.
• If given the choice, would we not want to have perfectly healthy children, who are free from the risk of hereditary diseases such as hereditary anemia?

 

There are simply too many factors we are still unsure of in cloning.

In experiments which have only involved animals thus far, out of hundreds of sets of experiments, only a few turn out viable, and even then, most of the cloned animals are born deformed.

• Are we willing to take the risk of possibly producing deformed children?
• It is generally perceived as acceptable to destroy the cloned animals should they be deformed, but not unlike the debate over abortion, should we destroy the deformed cloned babies?
  • Do they have a right to live?
  • Do we have a right to take away their lives?
  • Do we have a right to create these lives?

   

Dolly the cloned sheep had certain characteristics, which typically belong to older animals, in her DNA.Could this mean that Dolly would eventually show signs of inherited genetic damage through premature aging or some other disorder? (these fears are seemingly unfounded because Dolly is showing normal signs of aging for her age)

• Would human clones turn out likewise? Could we bear to witness a child of few months showing signs of diseases which typically affects adults only?

Just think about the dangerous power it would give us and the disastrous implications should someone abuse this power.

• What if Hitler lived in a time where cloning was possible? What if someone with similar ideals (i.e. to let a single 'superior' race take over the world) lives in a time where cloning is possible?
• What if another Hitler is cloned? Will we see another Holocaust?
• Also see: Our predictions

There are also countless ethical and religious issues behind the case for opposition to cloning.

• Would the clone be given as much rights as a human being as an un-cloned human?
  • "The clone would be a human being and deserve all the rights and privileges that a non-cloned human has. A clone should not be a second-class citizen. It is speculated that they would be considered as such".

    - Joseph Farnsworth

• Many religions are opposed to the idea of man 'playing God'. Most people do believe that we should accept what nature has given us, and have no right to custom make another human being.
• Some people believe that embryos can be considered as human beings with human rights since they have the potential to grow into such. Therefore, collecting surplus embryos and simply storing them in a deep-freeze as a commodity seems the equivalent of deep-freezing full-grown human bodies.
• Cloning is not natural.
• Would clones be as 'human' as uncloned humans? Would they have a soul? Or would they simply be walking genetic doubles?
• Cloning is unacceptable and incompatible with human dignity.
  • "Freedom of research finds its borders where human dignity is affected"

    - Germany's Research Minister, Ms Edelgard Bulmahn, as told to Berliner Zeitung daily.

• Children are a gift, not a due, for married couples. Cloning is asexual replication - not sexual reproduction, Nature's way of conferring children.