I wonder if the writer intended on the speculation. I’ve watched that movie a dozen times but now I have to watch it again with this in mind. It never occurred to me.
The film is a loose adaptation of the 1968 novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick.
In the original book, they were androids not flesh and blood.
The ‘blade runners’ were bounty hunters, not police officers.
Neither term, ‘replicant’ or ‘blade runner’ was in the book................