NRLC: Senate Girds for Fight on Human Embryo Farms
This is an update on the human cloning issue from
the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). Please forward this
e-mail to all appropriate lists. For guidance on what action you
should take on this crucial issue, see the congressional alert transmitted
by e-mail yesterday, or visit www.nrlc.org.
Senate Girds for Historic Debate on Human Embryo
Farms
WASHINGTON (February 5, 2002) -- Two contending
alliances of organizations are girding for a historic battle in
the U.S. Senate over the issue of cloning human embryos.
At issue is legislation -- already passed by the
House, and supported by President Bush -- that would make it a crime
to create a cloned human embryo. The powerful biotechnology industry
and various research advocacy groups have launched a sophisticated
lobbying and public relations campaign to defeat the bill, and the
outcome in the Senate is very much in doubt.
"Unless more senators reject the pressure from
the biotech industry and research advocacy groups, we may see human
embryo farms open up for business in the near future," warned
NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "Only intense grassroots
activity across the nation can counter the pro-cloning lobbying
campaign."
The bill to ban the cloning of human embryos (originally
S. 790, now S. 1899) is sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback (R-Ks.).
Under pressure from Brownback and other senators who oppose human
cloning, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) has reluctantly
agreed to allow the Senate to take up the cloning issue in March.
The ban is opposed by Daschle and other senior leaders
of the Senate's Democratic majority, including Senators Ted Kennedy
(D-Mass.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who chair the Senate committees
with primary jurisdiction over medical research.
Starting in January, three different Senate panels
have been conducting hearings on cloning, each chaired by pro-cloning
Democratic senators and each with a majority of pro-cloning witnesses.
However, the Brownback bill picked up an important
supporter on February 5 when Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) added
her name as a co-sponsor. Landrieu has a pro-abortion voting record.
"The risks of human cloning outweigh the potential benefits,"
said Landrieu, according to the Associated Press. "There are
other technologies available that allow the same medical advances
to move forward, without bearing these risks."
Landrieu's co-sponsorship "is especially important
if it gives other Democratic senators courage to reject pressure
from the biotech industry to allow hatcheries of cloned human embryos,"
commented NRLC's Johnson.
"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 fringe 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 use them as sources of stem cells or as "guinea
pigs" for lethal research.
In an effort to fend off enactment of the ban on
cloning embryos, the biotechnology industry and its Senate allies
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 pro-life groups -- have been introduced by Senator Tom
Harkin (D-Iowa) (S. 1893) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) (S.
1758).
The only genuine ban on human cloning is that proposed
by
Brownback (S. 1899), which is the same as the Weldon-Stupak bill
(H.R. 2505) that passed the House of Representatives last July 31.
It is supported by a coalition that includes National Right to Life
and other pro-life groups; major religious bodies including the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Southern Baptist Convention,
and the United Methodist Church; and various organizations that
oppose manipulations of the human genetic code, such as Friends
of the Earth and the International Center for Technology Assessment.
[Statements from a broad array of groups opposed to human cloning
are collected at the website of Americans to Ban Cloning, www.cloninginformation.org.]
The Brownback ban is facing vehement opposition
from two main quarters.
Leading the opposition is the well-funded Biotechnology
Industry Organization (BIO), a powerful lobbying group that represents
biotech corporations. [See www.bio.org]
BIO has been joined in opposition by a coalition
of organizations that advocate for research on various specific
diseases. Many of these groups are coordinating their activities
through an umbrella group called the Coalition for the Advancement
of Medical Research (CAMR). This coalition includes American Diabetes
Association, American Medical Association, Christopher Reeve Paralysis
Foundation, Parkinson's Action Network, Project A.L.S., Juvenile
Diabetes Research Foundation International, American Pediatric Society,
and other groups. [See www.stemcellfunding.org.]
Senate Action Stalled
Opinion polls have shown that most Americans oppose human cloning,
including the cloning of human embryos. Nevertheless, Advanced Cell
Technology of Worcester, Massachusetts last summer announced that
it was actively working to create human embryos.
Partly in response, on July 31 the House of Representatives
passed, 265-162, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act (H.R. 2505),
authored by Congressmen Dave Weldon (R-Fl.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mi.).
Brownback's S. 1899 is the same as the House-passed bill.
However, hopes for quick Senate action on the bill
were dashed by the September 11 terrorist attacks and ensuing events.
In late November, Advanced Cell Technology received wide publicity
for its claim that it had created several short-lived human embryos
by cloning.
President Bush condemned the ACT research on November
26, saying, "We should not as a society grow life to destroy
it. And that's exactly what's taking place."
Since then, BIO has accelerated its campaign to
persuade the public and the Senate that a ban should be placed only
on so-called "reproductive cloning," by which they mean
a ban on actually allowed a cloned embryo to be born.
The Harkin and Feinstein bills reflect the position
of the BIO/CAMR alliance: they 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.
"The Harkin-Feinstein legislation would create
a legal duty to kill a class of human individuals -- all human embryos
created by cloning," explained NRLC's Johnson. "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 promising medical research on mere "cells."
In reality, the "cells" that they are referring to are
cloned human embryos, and the "ban" that they claim to
support is actually a ban on allowing any of these embryos to survive.
On January President Bush announced 18 appointments
to a new President's Council on Bioethics, chaired by ethicist Leon
Kass, M.D. The council promptly began deliberations on the issues
surrounding human cloning, The council may issue a report sometime
this summer, but by that time senators will have voted on both the
true cloning ban and on the "clone and kill" option.
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