From U Pittsburgh: What justifies the United States ban on federal funding for nonreproductive cloning?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23361414

Med Health Care Philos. 2013 Jan 30. [Epub ahead of print]

What justifies the United States ban on federal funding for nonreproductive cloning?

Cunningham TV.

Source

Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 CL, 4200 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA, tvc.hps@gmail.com.

Abstract

This paper explores how current United States policies for funding nonreproductive cloning are justified and argues against that justification. I show that a common conceptual framework underlies the national prohibition on the use of public funds for cloning research, which I call the simple argument. This argument rests on two premises: that research harming human embryos is unethical and that embryos produced via fertilization are identical to those produced via cloning. In response to the simple argument, I challenge the latter premise. I demonstrate there are important ontological differences between human embryos (produced via fertilization) and clone embryos (produced via cloning). After considering the implications my argument has for the morality of publicly funding cloning for potential therapeutic purposes and potential responses to my position, I conclude that such funding is not only ethically permissible, but also humane national policy.