Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

Scientists have enveloped the whole humanity with their unprincipled practices and experimentations. Now, a child can be born through a non-natural means of production like cloning, in-vitro fertilization, insemination, surrogating and the likes. However, for Leon Kass, cloning and in vitro fertilization create an immoral experimentation upon the would-be child; generates misperceptions of personality and uniqueness. It further makes the original idea of “to beget” into manufacturing; and then give parents the sole control of the kind of genes they want. To this effect, this research examines the ethical implications of human cloning and in-vitro fertilization through the lens of Leon Kass. The research concludes that in vitro fertilization and human cloning are ethically unacceptable because they do not respect the dignity of the human person, but involve mutilation, mistreatment and animalization of the human nucleuses. They do not respect the moral or legal right of the human embryos. De jure, de facto, regardless of one's views on abortion or personhood of the human embryo, human embryos are unequivocally human beings and therefore should not be subjected to any kind of disparaging experimentation.

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