Sun Qianq and Poo Muming / AP

Monkeys have been successfully cloned by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Many fear that this could represent the next step towards human cloning. However, while human cloning might be technically closer, there are numerous legal and ethical barriers that stand in the way, given the inevitable suffering and death of research subjects that would be involved in developing the process.  Animal cloning experiments have resulted in appalling harms to mothers who endure repeated forced embryo implantation, abortion, cesarean birth, and death of their infants; and to their babies who die before or shortly after birth due to multiple complications and impairments. Existing laws protecting human research subjects almost certainly prevent this sort of cloning research being done on humans, although explicit bans on human cloning would provide a safer guarantee.

Sadly, it is not criminal to subject monkeys to non-consensual research causing suffering and death, and so this latest cloning research “success”, despite the harms to the monkeys involved, is trumpeted across the world. How do the scientists rationalize their actions?  Continue Reading