We wither and die so that others who are like us, yet different can replace us in the cycle of life. In occasionally oblique prose, Brent Waters offers useful reflections on the meaning of cloning for the family bond. He argues persuasively that we have to think more generally about the meaning of the relation of parents and children. If we wait to think about this until the issue of cloning arises, our thought will surely come too late. If we think of the family simply as individuals who consent to cohabit because such an arrangement meets their needs, we will never find reason to worry about assisted or collaborative reproduction.
Children become the outcome of reproductive decisions aimed at satisfying the desires of parents.
While such notions of family have become all too common among us, they do not depict a place of unconditional belonging for the child who falls short of parental desires. Cloning as a form of assisted reproduction would only exacerbate these problems by inviting us to suppose that members of a family might be replaceable. Peters notes the dangers especially for children. We may learn to think of them as commodities. I admit to a little puzzlement about why one who seems to take such dangers seriously would simultaneously welcome the world of expanded choice.