There is a third objection to human reproductive cloning (or, more accurately, to human clones). This objection is founded on a basic scientific error: the idea that a human clone is the same person as, or a copy of, the person who donated the nuclear DNA for the procedure (DNA donor). For convenience, I will refer to this error as the “identity fallacy.”

Unlike the first two objections discussed in the preceding chapters, the identity fallacy is unique to cloning. It has been particularly popular with the media, which has used it to great provocative effect. Magazines and television shows repeatedly have used the word “copy” to refer to human clones and have churned out demeaning images to illustrate their stories such as identical babies in laboratory beakers, gumball machines dispensing identical men, and ink stamps making identical copies of babies.

Why Is the Identity Fallacy Wrong?

Most readers and viewers probably never get beyond these inflammatory and misleading images. However, those who read far enough, or listen long enough, may find buried within some stories the acknowledgment that human clones would not be copies after all.

This is no surprise, for, as many scientists, philosophers, and law-yers have taken great care to explain, the identity fallacy is flatly wrong.

To understand why, let us begin by considering the characteristics of naturally occurring human clones: identical twins. Identical twins occur when a single fertilized egg splits in two early in the course of embryonic development.