ASK YOUR SENATORS TO BAN HUMAN EMBRYO FARMS

On July 31, 2001, the House of Representatives passed by a vote of 265-162 the Human Cloning Prohibition Act (H.R. 2505), co- sponsored by Congressmen Dave Welton (R-Fl.) and Bart Stupak (D- Mi.). Senator Sam Brownback (R-Ks.) introduced an identical bill (S. 1899) in the Senate.

The Human Cloning Prohibition Act reflects the public's overwhelming opposition to cloning human beings. The objection is not only to cloning as such, but also--especially so--to cloning embryos and then destroying them in the course of medical research or commercial exploitation. A poll by International Communications Research, conducted last June, specifically asked the question, "Should scientists be allowed to use human cloning to create a supply of human embryos to be destroyed in medical research?" In response, 86% of those questioned said "no" and only 10% said "yes."

President George W. Bush shares this sentiment and has promised to sign the Human Cloning Prohibition Act, once the U.S. Senate passes it too. After much stalling, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has promised to schedule debate on this issue this spring. The outcome of that debate is very uncertain.

WHO OPPOSES THE HUMAN CLONING PROHIBITION ACT?

Unfortunately, the momentum generated by the successful vote in the House was dissipated when the terrorists attacked on September 11. While the country's attention and energy were diverted to meet the terrorist threat, the opponents of the Human Cloning Prohibition Act reorganized and lobbied their friends in the Senate.

The principal opponents to the ban on human cloning are represented by the powerful Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). They stand to gain financially from the industrial exploitation of what one may accurately describe as "human embryo farms" or "human embryo hatcheries." Other opponents to a ban on human cloning are biomedical researchers who wish to have a free hand experimenting on cloned human embryos. It is the ever- present temptation of scientists to argue that if they can do it (for the high purpose of research, of course) they should be permitted to do it. And if needed, they want to have a "bioethics committee" giving them a permission slip.

Some patient advocacy groups also oppose the ban on human cloning because they hope that "therapeutic cloning" (in which a human embryo is cloned and killed for research purposes) will provide cures for certain chronic diseases through the production of stem cells matching a patient's genetic make-up. Seeking to arouse sympathy for those who suffer, they have used celebrities with currently incurable diseases to make emotional appeals to Congress not to block the cloning of human embryos as a source of stem cells. Spectacular failures of attempts to use fetal stem cells therapeutically and the growing promise of adult stem cells (especially if taken from the patient himself) have greatly undermined their position. Of course, morally and ethically, the argument that it is acceptable--for the sake of " curing"--to create, take tissue from, and then "sacrifice" a twin of the patient has always been repellent, to say the least. Now, in the wake of medical progress in the field of adult and umbilical cord stem cells, it is also becoming an irrelevant argument.

DISHONEST COUNTER-ATTACK

The opponents of a true ban of human cloning know, of course, that the public does not share their extreme views. They are not fools. In fact, they are very smart--and devious. Not surprisingly, the biotech industry has found willing accomplices in the U.S. Senate to pull off a legislative sham and scam in the form of what should be called a "clone-and-kill" bill or a law legalizing "cloned embryo farms."

The ground for this scam was prepared by, among many others, a committee from the National Academy of Sciences. On January 18 it issued a report that supported banning "reproductive cloning" (that is, cloning an embryo and then implanting it in a uterus) but not "a related but different procedure [namely] nuclear transplantation to produce stem cells." This is an artful dodge to avoid the word "cloning" in the second, permitted case. Note that the initial step ("nuclear transplantation"), i.e. the cloning part, is the same in both procedures. The only (and morally crucial) difference is that in "reproductive cloning" an attempt is made to let the embryo live and grow, while in the " production of stem cells" the embryo is destroyed in the process of breaking it up into the constituent stem cells.

Senator Brownback's "Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001" sticks to the original, scientific definition of human cloning as "human asexual reproduction, accomplished by introducing nuclear material from one or more human somatic cells into a fertilized or unfertilized ococyte [egg] whose nuclear material has been removed"

In order to stop the ban on human cloning and please the biotech industry, bills have been introduced by Senators Tom Harkin (D- Iowa), S. 1893, and Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.), S. 1758. Both bills are pernicious in that they claim to "ban" human cloning because they ban the implantation of cloned embryos; in reality, they make legal the unlimited production of cloned human embryos and their subsequent destruction as they are broken up and harvested as stem cells. Worse, both bills redefine human cloning as "asexual reproduction by implanting or attempting to implant [emphasis added] the product of nuclear transplantation into a uterus"--contrary to well-established scientific usage and definition. Thus only "reproductive" cloning is to be banned. And if anyone wishes to give the cloned embryo a chance to live by implanting the embryo in a uterus, he faces a 10-year jail sentence!

The Harkin-Feinstein bills are examples of dishonest sleight-of- hand legislation. In the case of the Feinstein bill, the attempt at deception is so crass as to even copy word-for-word the short title of Senator Brownback's bill.

WHAT TO DO

Write, phone, and fax your senators and ask them to

* vote for Sen. Brownback's bill, S. 1899, to ban all human cloning and human embryo farms,

* vote against the bills of Sen. Harkin, S. 1893, and Sen. Feinstein, S. 1758, because they allow the mass production of cloned embryos and mandate killing them.