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.

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 kill them for their stem cells or use them 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 Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) (S. 1893) and 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, http://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 http://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 http://www.stemcellfunding.org/.]

Opinion polls have shown that most Americans oppose human cloning, including the cloning of human embryos. Nevertheless, Advanced Cell Technology of Worchester, 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 allowing 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 B 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.

In 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.