Legal, ethical and moral dilemma of human cloning: the conflict between technological progress and human dignity

Human cloning involves creating a genetically identical copy of a human cell, tissue, or embryo. That is, human reproductive cloning, producing a genetic copy of an existing person, has never been successfully done and remains globally banned or restricted. While there is no scientific evidence of successful human reproductive cloning, biotechnology combines cloning methods with genetic engineering to drive advancements in medical research and disease treatment. With the development of genetic engineering and cloning technologies, human cloning, as a possible future phenomenon, has sparked extensive ethical and moral discussions. In legal medicine, human cloning presents complex challenges intersecting bioethics, criminal law, civil identity, and forensic science. While the technology remains strictly regulated or banned globally, forensic experts and medical jurists analyze cloning through distinct administrative, civil, and criminal frameworks. Human cloning can be ethically evaluated using the foundational four principles of biomedical ethics established by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress including autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. These principles provide a widely used framework to analyze the risks, rights, and moral implications of both reproductive and therapeutic cloning. German philosopher Jürgen Habermas strongly opposes human cloning and genetic enhancement because he believes they destroy the foundations of moral equality and personal autonomy. In his seminal work The Future of Human Nature, Jürgen Habermas argues against human cloning and the forensic implications of genetic duplication. He warns that the made status of a cloned individual fundamentally destroys the subject’s capacity to conceive of themselves as an autonomous, undivided author of their own life.