So what is Pence's conclusion? He argues that while we should wait with regard to the issue of human cloning we should only wait until we can be "reasonably sure" that the resulting child will not be deformed or defective in some fashion.
He argues that we ought not try to clone humans until we can successfully clone other primates such as chimpanzees. And this seems on the surface to be a reasonable proposal.
But how safe does primate cloning have to become before human cloning it morally permissible. He answers by saying that we should wait until the risk is within the normal range of risk that is accepted by ordinary people in sexual reproduction. But what does he mean by the term "ordinary?" He means people who are not chemically dependent or knowingly carrying the gene for a genetically transmitted disease. For example, if researchers can lower the rate of seriously deformed cloned chimpanzees to 1% then attempting human Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer would be permissible.
