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.47 Such a right is a right held ‘in trust’ for a child to exercise when he or she has the competence that makes the right relevant.It is important to consider this argument because it often seems asthough if there is a right to an open future this might pre-clude cloning since by hypothesis cloned children would have closed futures.Let’s see how this might or might not be true.This is how Feinberg explains the right:When sophisticated autonomy rights are attributed to children who are clearly not yet capable of exercising them, their names refer to rights that are to be saved for the child until he is an adult, but which can be violated ‘in advance’ so to speak, before the child is even in a position to exercise them.The violating conduct guarantees now that when thechild is an autonomous adult, certain key options will already be closed to him.His right while he is still a child is to have these future options kept open until he is a fully formed, self-determining adult capable of deciding among them.And Feinberg concludes that all rights-in-trust of this sort‘can be summed up as the single “right to an open future” ’.Later in his essay Feinberg cites with approval a seminal court ruling which outlines the relevant principle encapsulating the right to an open future confirming in Feinberg’s words thatchildren must be ‘permitted to reach maturity with as manyopen options, opportunities, and advantages as possible’.48The judgement comes from the 1944 case of Prince v.oningMassachusetts in the United States Supreme Court.49ClOnThe healthy, well rounded growth of young people into full90maturity as citizens with all that implies [in a democracy].Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves.But itdoes not follow that they are free in identical circumstances to make martyrs of their children before they have reachedthe age of full and legal discretion when they can make that decision for themselves.50This case involved the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses whodistributed religious tracts on the streets, and while Feinberg notes that the principle was probably misapplied in this case he clearly endorses its substance.Clearly Feinberg was notaddressing himself to the issue of cloning, but it is far from clear that cloning would deny cloned children an open future.HIGH EXPECTATIONS AND NO ‘OPEN FUTURE’51Some people think that human clones will have psychologicaldifficulties because people will have special expectations of them.The clone’s life will always be compared to that of his or her genetic parent.It has been said that the clone will have a ‘life in the shadow’ of the person from whose genes he orshe was cloned.52 A clone would have the feeling that his life already had been lived and, consequently, will be deprived of‘an open future’.We know how his genetic parent lived, sowe will know how the child will live.He will be considered as‘the copy’ that has less quality than its original and that has no life of his own.Leon Kass, President of the United States’President’s Council on Bioethics, expressed it this way: ‘The cloned individual, moreover, will be saddled with a genotype e of the Childthat has already lived.[.] People are likely always to com-arpare his performances in life with that of his alter ego.Still, elfone must also expect parental and other efforts to shape this new life after the original – or at least to view the child with The Wthe original version always firmly in mind.Why else did they 91clone from the star basketball player, mathematician, andbeauty queen – or even dear old dad – in the first place?’53This polemic assumes, without any evidence or plausibleargument, necessarily bad motives on the part of the inten-tional parents who want to make use of the cloning technique to have a child.The second problem in saying that a child will not have an open future is saying that a clone will not beunique and will not develop a personal identity.The thirdproblem with the argument is that all the concerns expressed in it are based on the assumption that people, despite all theexplanations and information, will persist in their belief in genetic determinism.Since we cannot be sure that this will be the case, the argument has a hypothetical character and carries less weight.Finally, such expectations are also true of all parenting.What parent does not look at their child with them-selves in mind as a model of expectation, if only a model of minimal expectation? ‘I want my child to be better than me’!We saw from our fairytale that even in a radical context ofparental expectation it is unlikely that burdens on children will be so great as to render unacceptable the whole practice.SOCIETAL PREJUDICE AND RESPECT FOR CLONESAnother objection often advanced against human cloning isthat the clones will be the victims of discrimination in society and will not be respected as full persons.The former chairman of the United Kingdom Human Fertilisation and EmbryologyAuthority (HFEA), Ruth Deech, asked: ‘Would cloned chil-dren be the butt of jibes and/or be discriminated against?Would they become a subcaste who would have to keep tooningCleach other? Would they be exploited? Would they becomeOnmedia objects?’5492We should note again that persons conceived through clon-ing will be persons like everyone else.The only difference to other people is the way in which they were conceived,namely with one somatic cell and an enucleated egg, and notwith two gametes.We should not discriminate against peopleon the basis of the way in which they were conceived, just as we should not discriminate against people on the basis ofgender, skin colour, sexual orientation, etc.It is important to note that in this objection, the source of the harm done to the future clone is not the intention of parents to have a child through cloning, but the fearful and/or prejudicial attitudesof other people towards clones.Can the fear of those dis-criminatory reactions be a sound ground to ban cloning?Suppose sexual orientation is genetic, and can be discovered by a simple test.Should we forbid a woman to implant anembryo which she knows as a result of pre-implantation gen-etic diagnosis (PGD) will result in a homosexual child andoblige her to conceive a new one in the hope that it does not have that disposition, because in our society homosexuals are discriminated against? Rather we should combat prejudicesand mistaken ideas concerning homosexuals.The same istrue for cloning.Moreover, a view that defends reproductive freedom and autonomy and combats prejudices and discrimination in society is more compatible with humandignity than a view which indirectly stimulates or main-tains those mistaken ideas and reduces our reproductiveautonomy.e of the ChildarelfThe W93Safety and DangerFour1
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