**Human beings shouldn't be treated as science experiments.** There are two primary reasons that human reproductive cloning is unethical: - As with creating genetically modified babies, reproductive cloning is unethical as it involves selecting characteristics of a child. Making a baby a vanity project is wrong and creates the dangerous mindset that certain characteristics are 'undesirable'. - There is also a very high risk of hurting the baby. Studies suggest that [99% of animal clones die in the womb or have genetic abnormalities](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jan/22/thisweekssciencequestions). Before human cloning could be approved as safe, animal cloning would have to be seen to be safe first, and continually using animals to experiment is also cruel. - Thirdly, we do not know how these new intergenerational dynamics would affect the clone. Would the child’s sense of self suffer as a clone of its parent? Would they be under extra pressure, having the same ‘potential’ as the ‘parent’, or feel like they were being used as an experiment? Would there be an unhealthy dynamic if a couple chose to create a clone child, and one person in the sexual relationship was the same genetically? - The fact that there’s no real reason for reproductive human cloning compounds all of these negatives. It is telling that we have known how to clone human beings for at least eight years (scientist Shoukhrat Mitalipov successfully made clones from [human embryos in 2013](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/05/15/183916891/scientists-clone-human-embryos-to-make-stem-cells)), and yet [no human clone has been allowed to live to full-term](https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/21/human-reproductive-cloning-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time/). No one seems to have an incentive to make one. - (Unlike reproductive cloning, therapeutic cloning, where the embryo is not implanted in a uterus, does have [real, positive uses in medicine.](https://archive.bio.org/articles/value-therapeutic-cloning-patients) However, the fact that human embryos are created and destroyed for this purpose could be seen as unethical or at least in a moral grey area.)

**TL;DR -- I don't think cloning is unethical, just as long as we're not contributing to overpopulation. It could even be useful in saving our butts from extinction one day.** I don't think cloning is unethical, but contributing to overpopulation *is.* Now is not the time to be popping babies out left and right, let alone clone an entire population of new human beings. But if we ever get to a point in our history where overpopulation isn't a problem, then it shouldn't be a huge issue. As long as the person being cloned gives consent, then have at it. As for not having the clone's consent: We have no problem forcing babies to be born without their consent, so we shouldn't have a problem with birthing clones, either. And if we ever get to a point where we're in danger of going extinct, cloning may be our only way out. In which case, we would need *experience* successfully cloning in order to succeed in saving our species. Idk. I'm not a scientist. I just think it could be useful.