Many persons will have difficulty accepting these ideas, primarily because they are so alienated from nature that they cannot understand their humanity within the parameters of nature as we as know it today. Cloning is another occasion for us to learn that whatever else we may be, we are thoroughly natural creatures. The cloning developments of recent weeks are shown, thereby, to be also revelations of nature, as well as of human beings. Familiar dualisms are empty and unhelpful. The dualism between pristine nature and the nature that bears irretrievably the marks of human intervention is almost fully obsolete.
Cloned humans are natural persons.
Since natural children inherit genes from both a father and a mother, cloned humans are not natural children of those whose cells are cloned, but rather of that person's parents. Since being human is intrinsically a moral enterprise, the discussion of cloning must include from the outset questions of motivations, purposes, and consequences. The moral and spiritual issues have to do with why we clone, what interests it serves, and the moral status of those interests. These also include the question of what the purpose of cloning, or of any human life, is, and what the consequences of cloning might be. In the non-human realm, under the assumption that plants and animals exist to serve us, including our need for food, clothing, and medicines and cosmetics, we have concluded, without much public discussion, that all genetic engineering is desirable, if it serves our wellbeing.