Ban Human Cloning

On January 29, Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) introduced the Human Cloning Prohibition Act (S. 245). This measure has 25 other cosponsors and was referred to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. S. 245 is a genuine ban on human cloning and is identical to H.R. 534, the measure passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on February 27. Human cloning may not be used to bring the clones to live birth or to experiment on the young clones to obtain their stem cells, a process that destroys them.

On February 5, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced an opposition bill, the Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act (S. 303). This measure has six other cosponsors and was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. S. 303 allows experimental research cloning.

In its definitions, S. 303 employs abstract circumlocutions defining the reality created through cloning as something other than a living human embryo. Instead, the bill makes reference to “the product of nuclear transplantation,” “unfertilized blastocyst,” or “intact cellular structure.”

In an attempt to prevent the clones being brought to live birth, the bill sets forth under ethical requirements what it calls the “Fourteen-Day Rule.” Cloned humans must be killed – “shall not be maintained” – after 14 days from first cell division.

In its July 2002 report on human cloning, the President’s Council on Bioethics referred to “the temptation to solve the moral questions by artful redefinition or by denying to some morally crucial element a name that makes clear that there is a moral question to be faced” (p. xiv). The report defined “cloned human embryo” as “the immediate (and developing) product of the initial act of cloning, accomplished by successful SCNT [somatic cell nuclear transfer], whether used subsequently in attempts to produce children or in biomedical research” (p. xv).

Embryonic stem cell research is both unethical and unnecessary. Adults stem cells offer alternatives that present no moral problems and are already producing therapeutic results. For more information, see: www.stemcellresearch.org.

For a full legislative briefing page, including cosponsors of bills, visit: nchla.org/campaign.htm.

Action: Contact your senators through regular letter, fax letter, or e-mail. E-mail is best suited for a brief statement of your views. Mail letters to: The Honorable (full name), U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For more contact information, see:
www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Message: “Please support and cosponsor S. 245, a genuine ban on human cloning.”

When: It is unsure when the Senate will debate this matter. Take action today! Thanks!
3/12/2003