Actions Requested

* Please write to your U.S. House member. Urge him or her to support extension of the 1995 ban on federal funding of any research in which human embryos are harmed (the "Dickey Amendment"). Also, encourage your representative to support The Responsible Stem Cell Research Act (H.R. 2096), which would expand federal funding of research on stem cells obtained from adults and from umbilical cords - - without harming human embryos.

In addition, urge the representative to co-sponsor the Weldon bill, H.R. 1644, to ban all human cloning. Ask the lawmaker to oppose any substitute measure that would allow so-called "therapeutic cloning," because this term really means that human embryos would be created in large numbers simply to be killed in medical research ("clone-and-kill").

The address for all members of the House of Representatives is:

The Honorable _______________

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, D.C. 20515

* Write to your two U.S. senators. Urge them to support Senator Brownback's bill, S. 790, to ban all human cloning, and to oppose any substitute measure that would allow "therapeutic cloning," because this term really means that human embryos would be created in large numbers simply to be killed in medical research ("clone-and-kill").

Also urge the lawmakers to oppose Senator Specter's bill, S. 723, which would authorize federal funding of research in which human embryos would be killed in order to obtain their stem cells. Tell them that you support the current law that bans federal funding of research in which human embryos are harmed (the Dickey Amendment).

The address for all U.S. Senators is:

Senator ____________

Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

A NOTE ON E-MAIL: If you use e-mail to write to a lawmaker, be sure to include your regular mailing address in the e-mail. Otherwise, your representative has no way of knowing whether you are actually his or her constituent.

* Send a letter of 250-300 words to the letters column of your local newspaper(s), encouraging citizens to contact their senators to urge support for banning all human cloning and/or for protecting human embryos from being killed in medical research.

* You can greatly assist NRLC's lobbying efforts by sending a copy of any response from a lawmaker, and any local press report or editorial dealing with these issues, to:

National Right to Life Committee

Federal Legislative Office

419-Seventh Street, Northwest, Suite 500

Washington, D.C. 20004

Phone: (202) 626-8820

Fax: (202) 347-3668

E-Mail: Legfederal@aol.com

Resources

For additional information on these issues, see the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org, under "Federal Legislation: Killing Human Embryos." For extensive additional information on both ethical and non-ethical forms of research involving human embryos, see the website of Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics, at www.stemcellresearch.org.