March 1, 2002
Dear Senator:
Because the U.S. Senate
may soon consider legislation on human cloning, I am enclosing materials to
help clarify the decision Congress faces on this important issue.
The
real nature of this decision is in danger of being obscured by the use of
euphemisms and misleading terms – including efforts to redefine the term
"cloning" for political purposes.
Scientifically, it is very clear what
cloning is. It is the creation of a new organism that is genetically identical
to a previously existing organism. In human cloning, a technique known as
somatic cell nuclear transfer is used to create a human embryo, a new living
organism of the human species. To recognize this is not to make a moral claim
about the rights or status of the embryo – it is to state an obvious
biological fact. As the enclosed materials demonstrate, the essentials of this
definition are agreed upon by the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Institutes of Health, longstanding federal law, and the National Bioethics
Advisory Commission.
By this agreed-upon definition, the
Brownback/Landrieu Human Cloning Prohibition Act (S. 1899) is the only pending
bill that bans human cloning. It is also the only bill found acceptable by the
House, and the only one President Bush has said he is willing to sign into
law.
Bills introduced by Senator Feinstein (S. 1758) and Senator Harkin
(S. 1893) do not ban use of the cloning procedure in humans at all, for any
purpose. Instead they ban a distinct procedure known as embryo transfer, if
the embryo was created by cloning. In short, they allow cloning without
meaningful limit, but impose heavy fines and a 10-year prison sentence on
anyone who places a cloned embryo in a womb (including the woman herself).
These bills raise serious issues of morality as well as enforceability; most
basically, however, they simply do not ban human cloning. Rather, they
facilitate such cloning for purposes of research – research that does not
have, and may never have, any possible clinical use. This approach is strongly
opposed by the President, and was rejected by the House by a 71-vote
margin.
The effort to ensure that human clones will be mass-produced in
our nation, but only in order to be killed for speculative benefit to others,
is as ineffectual in preventing human cloning as it is irresponsible in its
attitude toward developing human life. I urge you to reject such proposals,
and support the real human cloning ban offered by Senators Brownback and
Landrieu.
Sincerely,
Gail Quinn
Executive
Director
Fact
sheet, What is Human Cloning?
Fact sheet,
Does Human Cloning Produce an Embryo?
Life Issues
Forum column, How Not to Ban Human
Cloning
__________________________
Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202)
541-3070
June 03, 2003 Copyright © by United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops