U.S. Senate prepares to address human cloning

U.S. Senate action on a bill to ban the cloning of human embryos has been postponed until April.

At issue is Senate Bill 1899 sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. The House of Representatives passed an identical bill, the Weldon-Stupak bill (H.R. 2505), 265-162, on July 31, 2001. But the bill has been stalled in the U.S. Senate by fierce resistance from the biotechnology industry.

President Bush has repeatedly called on the Senate to pass the Brownback ban. On November 26, he condemned ongoing attempts to produce cloned human embryos, saying, "We should not as a society grow life to destroy it. And that's exactly what's taking place."

In the Senate, the biotech industry and allied senators are pushing alternative legislation which, they claim, would "ban the cloning of human beings." In reality, however, these bills would permit the creation of any number of cloned human embryos, but make it a federal crime to implant any such human embryo in a womb.

Such bills — called "clone and kill" bills by prolife groups — have been introduced by Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) (S. 1893) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) (S. 1758). These senators are currently working to produce a single unified bill to protect the practice of so-called "therapeutic cloning."

Some researchers and advocates use the term "therapeutic cloning" to refer to ongoing attempts to produce cloned human embryos as sources of stem cells, or for other experimental purposes. They distinguish this from so-called "reproductive cloning," in which cloned embryos would be implanted in wombs and carried to birth.

Currently, only a small number of researchers, mostly overseas, admit to wishing to pursue "reproductive cloning." The real battle is over whether to permit the mass cloning of human embryos in order to kill them for their stem cells or use them as "guinea pigs" for lethal research.

The Harkin-Feinstein legislation would create a legal duty to kill a class of human individuals — all human embryos created by cloning. The Harkin and Feinstein bills would make it a federal felony to allow a cloned human embryo to live. These bills would protect human embryo hatcheries, but punish with a ten-year prison sentence anyone who seeks to preserve the life of a cloned human embryo.

Typically, senators supporting the Harkin-Feinstein approach are telling their constituents that they favor "a ban on cloning human beings," but that they oppose the Brownback bill because it would ban important medical research on mere "cells." Senator Debbie Stabenow falls into this camp. In truth, the "cells" that they are referring to are cloned human embryos, and the so-called "ban" that they support is actually a ban on allowing any of these embryos to survive.

The Brownback bill would allow the use of cloning methods to produce cells (including stem cells), tissues, or organs, so long as human embryos are not cloned.

The Brownback bill is supported by prolife groups such as the National Right to Life Committee and by many religious organizations, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Methodist Church. The bill has also drawn support from various organizations that oppose manipulations of the human genetic code, such as the International Center for Technology Assessment. Scores of prominent liberal and left-wing figures have endorsed a complete ban on the cloning of human embryos.

Editor's Note: The cloning information was compiled from the National Right to Life Committee. For more information on human cloning and federal legislation addressing the issue, visit their web site at www.nrlc.org.

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