The purpose or reasons for cloning-to-produce-children are, as they are stated, clearly intelligible on their face. When challenged, the defenders of these often appeal to larger moral and political goods. These typically fall within the following three categories: human freedom, existence, and well-being.
1. The Goodness of Human FreedomStrictly speaking, the appeal to human freedom is not so much a defense of cloning itself as it is of theright to practice it, asserted against those who seek to prohibit it. No one, we suspect, would say that he wanted to clone himself or any one else in order to be free or to vindicate the goodness of liberty. Nevertheless, human freedom is a defense often heard in support of a "right" to clone.
2. The Goodness of ExistenceLike the appeal to freedom, the appeal to the goodness of existence is not an argument for cloning, but an argument against opponents who speak up in the name of protecting the cloned child-to-be against the harms connected with its risky and strange origins as a clone.
3. The Goodness of Well-BeingThe third moral argument for cloning-to-produce-children is that it would contribute in certain cases to the fulfillment of human goods that are widely honored and deeply rooted in modern democratic society. These human goods include the health of newborn and existing children, reproductive possibilities for infertile couples, and the possibility of having a biologically related child. In all these circumstances, human cloning could relieve existing suffering and sorrow or prevent them in the future.
Some people argue more broadly that an existing generation has a responsibility to ensure, to the extent possible, the genetic quality and fitness of the next generation. Human cloning, they argue, offers a new method for human control and self-improvement, by allowing families to have children free of specific genetic diseases or society to reproduce children with superior genetic endowments. It also provides a new means for gaining knowledge about the age-old question of nature versus nurture in contributing to human achievement and human flourishing, and to see how clones of great geniuses measure up against the "originals."
