In my post about the Fox All Star cloning debate, in which I bemoan the fact that no one seems to think that they even have to offer a reason why human cloning is a Bad Thing, reader “Joe” writes:

The reason to be against human cloning is quite clear, which may be why some people don’t think they need to state. What do you do with failures?

If that’s your argument, it’s an argument against allowing procreation at all, since every pregnancy attempt has the potential for defects. As Professor Reynolds has correctly pointed out (probably on numerous occasions), that’s an argument against doing cloning badly–not against cloning per se. We had exactly the same issue with in-vitro fertilization, but somehow the world didn’t come to an end, ethically or otherwise, and there are many happy people in the universe who wouldn’t exist today if we had banned it.

Certainly it would be irresponsible to attempt to clone a human until we understand much more about the process, and have done it reliably and successfully on something similarly complex (e.g., chimps, which share about 98% of our DNA). And outlawing it will not prevent it–it will simply send it underground where it’s even more difficult to monitor or regulate it.

But I’m still awaiting an argument against cloning per se, other than the Leon Kass “ick” factor.