House Subcommittee To Hear Testimony On Human Cloning
Washington, DC — Pro-life Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy & Human Resources announced he would hold a hearing on the issue of human cloning this week.
Souder announced that, in anticipation of further consideration of issues related to cloning of human beings following an upcoming Senate vote, the Subcommittee would hold an oversight hearing to receive testimony from cloning advocates and opponents and review medical, legal, and bioethical obstacles to cloning. Witnesses are expected to include Dr. Panos Zavos, who is working to create human clones and has previously announced his intention to implant his first clone embryos this year. The Subcommittee will discuss the status of his efforts.
Several scientists around the world have announced their intention to clone human beings for reproductive purposes, and others in the research community have advocated creating human embryos for the sole purpose of medical research. Human cloning poses substantial scientific and ethical dilemmas, including serious risks of death and deformities in cloned children as well as significant health risks to women from whom eggs are harvested. Few animal clones have survived to birth, and those born have been universally genetically flawed with many suffering from severe abnormalities.
Last year, the House of Representatives approved legislation endorsed by the Bush Administration (H.R. 2505) to prohibit human cloning for any reason, and the Senate is expected to vote on related legislation in the near future.
In addition to Dr. Zavos and a possible witness from the Administration, the Subcommittee will hear testimony from Dr. Anton-Lewis Usala, a medical professor at East Carolina University, and James Kelly, a patient advocate for spinal cord injuries. Both oppose human cloning for research purposes as unethical and diverting resources from more promising endeavors. Ms. Judy Norsigian, a feminist leader from the Boston Women's Health Collective, is expected to testify with respect to the exploitation of and significant health risks likely to women who donate eggs necessary for cloning.
The Subcommittee has oversight jurisdiction for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, which would be responsible for enforcing any criminal statutes related to human cloning.
See The Washington Times for follow-up coverage on both stories.
(These articles courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
Washington, DC — The National Right to Life Committee is campaigning against a fourth bill in the Senate that they say would leave the door open to human cloning.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat, would ban the cloning of human beings — so-called “reproductive cloning” – but remains silent on the issue of therapeutic cloning, pro-life organizations oppose because it involves the destruction of human life.
The measure has been billed as a common-ground approach as the Senate prepares to vote on cloning, with action expected by the end of the month. Three bills, sponsored by Senators Harkin, Feinstein and the third by a small bipartisan group of Senators — all ban reproductive human cloning but allow human cloning for research purposes that involves killing unborn children. Another, sponsored by Republican Senator Sam Brownback and Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, bans all forms of human cloning and enjoys the support of the pro-life community.
“We see it as a way to act upon what everyone agrees needs to be acted upon,” said Dorgan's spokesman Barry Piatt. “Everyone believes cloning a human being should be illegal. So let's close that door right now and then let's come to a sensible agreement on the other issues.”
Piatt said the bill's purpose is to prevent the therapeutic procedure from being used to produce the first cloned infant.
However, Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life, said the bill leaves the term “human being” open to interpretation. Because some do not consider an unborn child to be a human being, he said, that language could allow a cloned human embryo to be implanted in a uterus and used for experimentation.
The Dorgan bill reads, “It shall be unlawful for any person to engage in a human cloning procedure for the purpose of creating a cloned human being.”
“So you've got a bill that has this additional condition, that basically anything is OK unless it's done to produce a human being,” Johnson said. “If a 'fetus' is not a 'human being,' then the bill would allow a cloned embryo to be implanted in a human or animal womb and grown for months before being killed to obtain tissues or organs.”
Dorgan claimed National Right to Life's observation is “absurd.” “To say that [the bill] positively permits something to happen is inaccurate,” Piatt said. “This bill does not address the rest of the issues, it addresses what we can agree on: that cloning a human being should be illegal.”
However, the International Center for Technology Assessment, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that analyzes emerging technologies, agrees with the National Right to Life assessment of the Dorgan bill. An ICTA analysis says the Dorgan bill is “far from the Senate's 'common ground' and is the most permissive piece of human cloning legislation introduced in the Senate.”
The ICTA analysis found that — unlike the other human cloning bills in the Senate — the Dorgan bill would legalize the implantation of a cloned human embryo into a woman's uterus.
Dorgan's bill is co-sponsored by just two other Democrats — Sens. Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Mark Dayton of Minnesota — but National Right to Life said there is an “active attempt to market this as a consensus measure.”
