Is human cloning safe?

With regard to the “safety problem,” the report concluded that present cloning techniques cannot guarantee the safe production of a human clone individual.

In the light of these problems, the report concluded that the production of a human clone individual must be legally prohibited. Concerning research on human somatic clone embryos, the report stated that this should be permissible within certain limitations if a justifiable ground is to be found, because it may bring great benefit to humans in the field of medicine. But at the same time, the report stressed that a human somatic clone embryo has significance as the “sprout of human life” (hito no seimei no hōga), like a human embryo, and should therefore be handled with the utmost care. [2/3]

Based on this report, the Bioethics Committee of the Council for Science and Technology announced that the production of a clone individual, together with chimeric/hybrid human individuals, must be legally penalised, and that research on human somatic clone embryos should be regulated in some way (December 21, 1999). This announcement signalised the government’s decision to legally regulate the production of a clone human individual and other chimeric/hybrid human individuals but not “therapeutic cloning” and other research. In other words, the government had abandoned the idea of establishing a comprehensive law dealing with assisted reproductive technology and research on human germline cells.

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The Ethics of Human Cloning and the Sprout of Human Life (2004)
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