July 11, 2025
The President's Council on Bioethics included two opinions in its report on human cloning, released Thursday.
The majority, 10 of 18 members, recommended:
- A four-year moratorium on cloning for biomedical research.
Seven of these 10 members also supported an outright ban, but joined with those who wanted a temporary moratorium in making their recommendation.
"We find it disquieting, even somewhat ignoble, to treat what are in fact seeds of the next generation as mere raw material for satisfying the needs of our own," the report said.
"Embryonic human beings, no less than human beings at other developmental states, should be treated as subjects of moral respect and human rights, not as objects that may be damaged or destroyed for the benefit of others."--Robert P. George, law professor at Princeton University.
The minority, 7 of 18 members, recommended:
- No ban on cloning for biomedical research, but new regulations to curb abuses.
"The research shows great promise, and its actual value can only be determined by allowing it to go forward now," the report said. "We believe this research would provide relief to millions of Americans."
"During any such proposed moratorium, patients will continue to have currently incurable disease--for which there is now no hope of alleviation--and many will continue to die of them."--Elizabeth Blackburn, cell biologist at the University of California San Francisco.
Both groups recommended a permanent ban on cloning to produce a baby.
Proponents say this technology could someday help infertile couples create a genetically related child or help parents have a child who would be an ideal transplant donor for a sibling. The council said those arguments overemphasize the desires and freedom of the parents without sufficient attention to the well-being of the cloned child-to-be.
Further, virtually all scientists agree that a cloned baby could have numerous health problems.
"There seems to be no ethical way to try to discover whether cloning-to-produce-children can become safe, now or in the future," the council concluded.
"It is by consensus dangerous, probably not even attainable for years, and simply an odd concept. Even if reproductive cloning did succeed in the future, the idea of informing one's spouse, 'Let's go with my genes, not yours,' is bizarre and socially a nonstarter."
