HUMAN CLONING
Like many other
Americans, I believe that efforts to create human beings by
cloning mark a new and decisive step toward turning human
reproduction into a manufacturing process in which children are
made in laboratories to preordained specifications.
Creating
cloned live-born children begins by creating cloned human embryos,
a process which some also propose as a way to create embryos for
research or as sources of cells and tissues for possible treatment
of other humans.
The prospect
of creating new human life solely to be exploited and destroyed in
this way has been condemned on moral grounds by many as displaying
a profound disrespect for life. Moreover, recent scientific
advances indicate that there are fruitful and morally
unproblematic alternatives to this approach. There is no need for
this technology to ever be used with humans, whether for
reproductive purposes or for destructive research
purposes.
The President
has stated his strong support for my bill, the Human Cloning
Prohibition Act. In the 107th Congress, the United States House of
Representatives voted, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan manner, to
ban all human cloning. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to
consider such legislation last year. The Human Cloning Prohibition
Act of 2003 (S. 245), which I have introduced in the 108th
Congress with 22 original cosponsors, explicity bans the creation
of embryos through cloning, and it imposes civil and criminal
penalties on anyone who attempts to create a human clone through
the process of human somatic cell nuclear transfer. Additionally,
it is significant to note that such legislation has enjoyed
support from both sides of our political spectrum.
