Washington, DC — The National Right to Life Committee launched a radio ad in South Dakota last week urging listeners to tell that state's senators including pro-abortion Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to support a ban on cloning human embryos.
The House has passed such a ban, and identical legislation sponsored by Sens. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, and Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, is pending before the Senate.
Daschle would like the Senate to debate the issue sometime before the end of May, Daschle spokeswoman Molly Rowley told The Washington Times.
Rowley said the Daschle camp has not heard the ad yet. The NRLC ad, which began running in five cities, including Rapid City and Sioux Falls, features a man and a woman discussing the issue. The man notes that the president supports the House-passed bill, so the “only obstacle” to its passage is the Senate.
The man also says South Dakota's two Democratic senators — Daschle and pro-abortion Senator Tim Johnson — indicated they may vote for a competing bill. Johnson is running for re-election in November against pro-life Congressman John Thune.
Pro-abortion Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and pro-abortion Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) have introduced two competing bills. The woman in the ad says these bills would “allow human embryo farms to open for profit.” The ad urges listeners to call the Senators' offices in support of the Brownback-Landrieu bill.
An NRLC press release last week said the Feinstein bill would allow “mass cloning of human embryos for use in lethal experiments or as medical commodities.”
Rowley said Daschle has not endorsed any specific legislation on the issue. She said he supports a ban on “reproductive” cloning — which is aimed at creating a human infant — but is reluctant to close the door on so-called “therapeutic” cloning, which kills unborn children in order to obtain their stem cells for research.
Johnson's spokesman, Bob Martin, said the senator has not signed on to any particular proposal, but supports a ban on reproductive human cloning. He has not taken a position on therapeutic cloning, Martin said.
ACTION: Please continue to call or fax your views to your U.S. Senators on human cloning. Encourage them to a) support S. 1899 the Brownback-Landrieu human cloning ban and to b) oppose the Harkin and Feinstein fake cloning bans that allow for the destruction of human life.
For more coverage on related stories, see the Washington Times
(This article 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.)
