Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

Human cloning is one of the most controversial issues in ethics. This paper, with analytic-descriptive method, deals with Kant&aposs principle of ends and permission or prohibition of human cloning from its point of view. According to Kant&aposs principle of ends, any action in which humanity is taken as a means, not as an end, is prohibited. There are different interpretations of taking humanity as an end: to do without one&aposs awareness anything, to respect human&aposs freedom and autonomy, to help his happiness and to respect the humanity of others. According to the Kant&aposs principle of ends our review shows any human cloning in which human being is taken as a means to other ends, is prohibited. Thus human cloning in order to produce many groups of humans with the same genetics and using them in war or excruciating work, to reproduce geniuses, politicians, soldiers, scientists..., produce children with ideal genotype and to replace recently died family, is prohibited. But human cloning in which humanity of produced people is taken as an end is permissible, such as cloning at the purpose of human happiness without limiting their freedom and autonomy, therapeutic cloning for producing tissue and transplant organs, for helping infertile couples and for giving birth to healthy newborns without genetic disorders.

Telling the truth to patients is a key issue in medical ethics. Today, most physicians hold that truth-telling to patients is crucial, and that lying to patients or withholding information from them is not acceptable. It seems, however, that absolute and unconditional truth-telling is not always possible, and it may not be feasible to tell some patients certain truths under some circumstances. Although truth-telling is a rudimentary principle in ethics, it is allowed to withhold truth or even to tell lies in some circumstances. From the point of view of reason and tradition, lying under certain circumstances is allowed for instance when one is disinclined to tell the truth, or in emergencies where truth-telling might lead to loss of life, property or someone's reputation, and when truth may involve two adequately unpleasant situations. In my opinion, it is necessary to tell the truth, regardless of possible harms, when continuation of treatment, or the patient's cooperation and consent depend on it, and also when the truth which needs to be told to a patient is the incurability of his disease and therefore his inevitable death,. In other cases, however, when there are truths such as severity of disease, death of others in the accident, family problems outside the hospital, predicted survival time, and other possible diagnoses, the truth can be withheld and the patient can even be lied to if there is any risk of harm to the patient.