What is cloning?
Cloning – or somatic cell nuclear transfer – is a process where the nucleus of an egg cell is removed and replaced with the nucleus of an adult somatic cell, which is a non-egg, non-sperm adult body cell. The cell nucleus contains all the unique genetic information for a particular creature. Once the nucleus has been placed into the egg cell, the cell is shocked with an electric charge, and the new nucleus directs the development of a new being whose genetic make-up is almost identical to the original adult somatic cell. Human cloning produces an embryonic human being. It is a new life, developing on its own just as any other human life. It passes through every stage of life – fetal, infantile, adult – as does a human being created by sexual reproduction. In each case there is a human being created.

The two types of cloning
While much has been made over the differences between reproductive and therapeutic cloning, they both involve the same process. The terms "reproductive" and "therapeutic" simply describe the ends for which cloning is carried out. In reproductive cloning, a new life is created and allowed to mature and develop until birth. In therapeutic cloning, a new life is created in order to destroy it and use its stem cells for research purposes. Both reproductive and therapeutic cloning create a new, invaluable life.
A number of large animals have been cloned, starting with Dolly the sheep. Typically, in each case there have been hundreds of failures before each success. These have included miscarriages, multiple deformities, sudden deaths, gigantism and more.

America Values Opposes Cloning
Cloning experiments have been rejected throughout Western history, and condemned by an ethical consensus expressed after World War II in the Nuremberg Code, which stated: "No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will result." However noble the ultimate purpose for which it is done, we have always agreed it is wrong to kill one human being to benefit another. Yet cloning does just that.

Here are some more reasons why we oppose all forms of human cloning:

  • Therapeutic cloning deliberately creates and destroys human life. The first argument against human cloning is straightforward and widely shared: it is dangerous. The report of the one successfully cloned sheep in Scotland was preceded by 276 failures. Cloned human embryos have already been killed in research laboratories. In addition, genetic screening will be used with cloned human embryos and any embryo who does not pass will be killed.
  • Cloning endangers and exploits women because it requires the harvesting of millions of eggs from women, which places them at increased risk of ovarian cancer, infertility, and other health hazards.
  • The medical benefits of cloning have been extremely inflated. Although cloning advocates claim that embryonic stem cell research will lead to miracle cures, not a single patient is currently being treated using such research. The promises of future miracle cures from research on cloned embryos are also similarly inflated. However, numerous studies do show the current therapeutic benefits of medical treatments derived (ethically) from adult stem cells and umbilical cord cells.
  • Cloning clearly violates the principle of equality fundamental to America. Cloning frustrates equality because “therapeutic” cloning creates and then destroys human life for the supposed benefit of other life. Once human life has been created, proponents of its use and destruction must convince the public that there is a reason to deny the protection we give to every other human life. They can only do so by arguing that some lives are not worthy of protection. But this is a perilous argument for it leaves to the powerful to decide who is protected.
  • Cloning turns people into commodities. Cloning subjects a human person to being treated as a thing. Cloning a child is an expensive technological project, prone to "quality control." Treating persons as things has become commonplace in our society, but the practice is always destructive and immoral.