Our Children, Our Selves: The Meaning of Cloning for Gay People
Abstract
Some gay and lesbian commentators have seen important benefits for gay people in the practice of cloning human beings. Some commentary has, for example, asserted the importance of cloning as a way of preserving one's DNA and in rendering heterosexuality obsolete. I analyze the former claim as involving an erroneous view of human value and the latter view as an over- interpretation of the effects of cloning. More significantly, gay and lesbian commentary describes cloning as important to reproductive self-determination, the protection of a viable community of gay people, and sexual orientation research. I point out difficulties with each of these expectations, noting that enthusiasm for cloning might be the artefact of social injustice because gay men and lesbians are denied access to other ways of having and keeping children. It is, furthermore, unclear that cloning would be widely used, making it fairly unimportant as a factor in the total number of gay people. I then describe why cloning would offer useful but not definitive insights about the determinants of sexual orientation. To date most commentary from gay and lesbian quarters has focussed on the benefits of cloning for adults, and I argue that the ethics of human cloning will be more firmly established only when the benefits effects of cloning on children born this way are squarely addressed.
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