Abstract

Many people all over the world are convinced that cloning human beings is unethical and should be outlawed through prohibitions in criminal law. In spite of this, debate flares up repeatedly whenever experiments with human embryonic cells are carried out somewhere in the world. This will continue to happen as long as the conviction that cloning human beings is unethical lacks a logical philosophical-ethical foundation, which is still the case1,2. In addition, a foundation that could be more permanent against the background of different cultural traditions is particularly absent. The standard justification for the prohibition of human cloning is derived from the complex of arguments on the status of the embryo, the so-called ICP arguments. According to these arguments, from the time the egg cell is fertilized and onwards, the human embryo is and remains genetically identical (I) with the subsequent unique (individual) person and there is an unbroken continuous (C) development from the fertilized egg cell through birth to the death of every single person that is born. Above all, it is claimed that there is an irrevocable potential (P) for human individuality, which is why every embryo means human life, possibly even a living development not only into a person but as a person. All this leads to the embryos’ right to unique human existence or development