WASHINGTON (May 7, 2002) -- Despite the support of President Bush, the Brownback-Landrieu bill to ban the cloning of human embryos has run into a wall of stiff resistance in the U.S. Senate.

The biotechnology industry lobby and patient-advocacy groups are attacking bill in costly advertising campaigns, including TV ads. The bill, authored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), is also under fire from groups of scientists and from editorial boards at various newspapers.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), an opponent of the bill, had promised that the Senate would deal with the issue during May. But at NRL News deadline on May 7, it appeared increasingly likely that Daschle might delay bringing the issue to the floor until after the congressional Memorial Day recess, which runs from May 24 until June 3.

The Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 1899) is identical to legislation that passed the House of Representatives on July 31, 2001, 265-162. In a speech to anti-cloning advocates on April 10, President Bush strongly urged the Senate to pass the bill quickly.

Nevertheless, the Senate' s Democratic leadership has lined up strongly against the bill. The Democrats currently control the Senate by a 51 to 49 margin. So far, only two Democrats, Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Ben Nelson (D-Ne.), have endorsed the bill, although a number of others remain undecided.

[Please see the Action Alert to learn what you can do to affect the outcome of this crucial battle.]

Senators opposed to the Brownback-Landrieu bill have embraced competing legislation, backed by the biotech industry, that they claim would A ban the cloning of human beings." In reality, these biotech-backed bills permit unlimited cloning of human embryos, but prohibit implanting any such embryo in a human or animal uterus. Pro-life groups refer to these as "clone and kill" bills, because they would impose a legal requirement that an entire class of humans -- cloned human embryos -- must die.

The latest A clone and kill" bill (S. 2439) was introduced on May 1 by Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who was joined by Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.), Ted Kennedy (D-Ma.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Strom Thurmond (R-SC), and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson commented,  "The Specter bill does not prohibit the creation of cloned humans -- it allows human cloning, but then requires the death of each cloned human embryo. Subject only to paperwork requirements, this bill would allow biotech labs to clone countless human embryos and then kill them for their parts, or sacrifice them like lab rats in experiments. Under this bill, what President Bush called human 'embryo farms' would spring up and flourish."

Hatch' s cosponsorship of the bill was played up by the news media, since Hatch has long voted against abortion. Hatch said he believes that human life begins only in a mother' s womb, and that what he calls  "regenerative medicine" could lead to cures for various diseases.

The Boston Globe reported (May 3), "[A] close look at Hatch's record over the years shows the biotechnology industry had reason to be confident that Hatch would take its side. Just two years ago, 160 executives of the biotech industry gathered in Washington to name Hatch the nation's biotech' legislator of the year.' "

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.), the chief cosponsor of the Brownback bill, commented,  "There are a lot of big, heavily financed biotech companies that want minimal rules. They believe that science is God."

The Specter bill differs little from the Greenwood Substitute, which the House of Representatives rejected decisively, 249-178, on July 31, 2001, after which the House passed legislation identical to the Brownback-Landrieu bill, 265-162.

In his April 10 speech on human cloning, President Bush condemned exactly the approach taken in the Specter bill. Allowing cloning of human embryos for research  "would contradict the most fundamental principle of medical ethics, that no human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another," the President said.

[You can read or listen to the President' s speech at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/print/20020410-4.html ]

On April 22, the organization Stop Human Cloning released a national public opinion poll conducted by The Polling Company which indicated strong public opposition to cloning human embryos for research.

When provided with short summaries of the two sides' positions, respondents agreed with the anti-embryo-cloning side by a margin of 59-26%. When asked if they agreed with President Bush' s position against both research cloning and cloning for birth, 63% agreed, while 29% disagreed.

On April 24, a poll released by pro-cloning groups claimed to show two-thirds public support for cloning for research. But this result was obtained only after the pollster, Opinion Research Corporation International, misinformed respondents about both of the competing bills in Congress, and the pollster never indicated that the argument involved human embryos or their destruction.

Opponents of the Brownback-Landrieu bill generally insist that it would stifle critical medical research. But the bill places no restrictions on any types of research that do not involve human cloning, and explicitly allows even the use of cloning methods to produce human cells (including stem cells), tissues, or organs, so long as no human embryos are created.

On April 19, NRLC launched a new wave of anti-cloning radio ads in eight states: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and South Dakota.

Each of these ads takes the form of a conversation between a man and a woman about the issue of human cloning and human embryo farms, starting with a reference to President Bush' s April 10 speech.

The first voice notes that President Bush urged the Senate to pass the Brownback bill and adds, "He [the President] warned that unless this is done quickly, we'll have human embryo farms." After a dialogue on the issue, the woman exclaims, "Can' t they see that it' s just not right to make human embryos and harvest them like crops?," or similar sentiments.  A third voice concludes the ad with information on how to telephone the office of the senator(s).

Most of the ads also briefly critique the "clone and kill" bills.

On April 24, a Hollywood-based group called "CuresNow" released a TV ad in opposition to the Brownback-Landrieu bill. The ad featured a conversation between actors playing a married couple, "Harry" and "Louise."

In one ad, titled "Confused," Louise tells Harry that Congress is considering legislation that "puts scientists in jail for working to cure our niece' s diabetes." Harry asks "Is it cloning?," to which Louise emphatically shakes her head and replies, "No. Uses an unfertilized egg and a skin cell."

NRLC' s Douglas Johnson commented, "Louise's answer is a brazen deception, and these Hollywood manipulators know it. Panels of scientific experts at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere have agreed that the procedure that the Brownback bill would ban for humans [somatic cell nuclear transfer] is indeed 'cloning' and will indeed produce a 'human embryo.' " [See sidebar, A Does Research Cloning Create a Human Embryo?" ]

Quickly, the organization Stop Human Cloning issued a radio ad satirizing the pro-cloning ad. In the parody, a couple named "Harriet" and "Louis" watch the CuresNow TV ad and comment that the actors "look just like us" and might be clones. Louis says, "But their ad says they' re only using a human egg and a skin cell," to which Harriet responds, "Well, that' s how you make a clone!"

The characters of Harry and Louise originally became famous in a series of TV ads sponsored by the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) in 1993-94, opposing President Clinton' s proposal to establish a national system of government-managed health care. As soon as the CuresNow ad was released, the HIAA protested the use of the characters, which it said was "identity theft." On May 2, the HIAA filed a lawsuit charging the ads' producers with copyright infringement.

[To see various pro-cloning and anti-cloning ads, visit http://www.cloninginformation.org/ ]

Many of the groups supporting the ban cooperate under a loose-knit coalition called  "Americans to Ban Cloning," which maintains an informative website, http://www.cloninginformation.org/. [Many NRLC-produced documents on cloning issues are posted on that website, and also on NRLC' s own site at http://www.nrlc.org/Old/oldIndex.html ]

Besides the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the Brownback-Landrieu bill is opposed 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, which has been sponsoring broadcast and newspaper ads in various states, includes the American Medical Association, Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, Parkinson' s Action Network, Project A.L.S., Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, and other groups. [See http://www.stemcellfunding.org/]