Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to address the House regarding the very important issue of human cloning.

The question before our Nation is are we going to allow human cloning in the United States of America or are we going to ban human cloning?

In the 107th Congress, I introduced legislation, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001. This legislation ultimately was reviewed and passed approvingly after hearings by the Committee on the Judiciary and was brought to the floor of the House and received a favorable vote in the House of Representatives passing by a margin of 265 for, 162 against.

Of note in that vote there were some 63 Democrats who voted in support of this legislation to ban all forms of human cloning. And I would point out that many of the Democrats who voted in support of banning human cloning were pro-choice.

There are many people who have tried to define this debate about human cloning as liberal/conservative. They have tried to define it as a pro-life/pro-abortion rights kind of debate; but in reality the debate on human cloning transcends some of those traditional divisions that separate the political parties and factions within the House of Representatives and within our Nation.

Unfortunately, the legislation to ban all forms of human cloning that passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives 2 years ago, almost 2 years ago now, it was never taken up by the Senate. The Senate never held a vote on the issue. Therefore, the issue was essentially left open; and, indeed, many Americans are shocked and surprised to learn today that there is no law on the books in the United States of America to ban human cloning. Indeed, many foreign countries have already moved, they have already acted to ban human cloning. Several European countries have banned it outright, like Germany, for example. Norway has banned it completely. The European Parliament has called for a complete ban on human cloning. The French Senate very recently voted to ban all forms of human cloning. So clearly there is a tide sweeping the globe that says, no, we are not going to move away from human pro- creation to baby manufacturing, which is really what this debate is all about in its essence.

Due to the failure of the Senate, or the other body, to act on this issue, I reintroduced my legislation along with my colleague from Michigan (Mr. Stupak). Our bill is H.R. 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003. And I would like to talk a little bit about what the legislation is and what it does, and I have a few visuals to help with this debate.

First of all, I would like to start out with what is human cloning. In normal sexual reproduction, the sperm and the egg unite to form a single-cell embryo, and that single-cell embryo rapidly begins a process of dividing to form this multicell embryo. And, of course, from there it develops further into the fetal stage of development forming a baby and ultimately a human being like you and I.

In human cloning we have a procedure called somatic cell nuclear transfer, and what happens here is you take a human egg and you either deactivate the nucleus in the egg or you remove it, and there are two different approaches to that. And you essentially end up with an egg that has no nuclear material in it. In a normal human egg, the normal cells in our bodies have 46 chromosomes; but in the egg there are 23 chromosomes and in the sperm there are 23, and they come together to form a new unique human being with 46 chromosomes.

So in the process of cloning, you either deactivate this nucleus or you eject it out. So you end up with an enucleated egg. And then you take a cell from somebody's body, and in this depiction this has the appearance of a skin cell and you extract the nucleus out of that cell, and you place it inside the egg. And this is why it is called nuclear transfer. It is called somatic cell nuclear transfer because the cells in our bodies are called somatic cells or body cells. Somatic means body. And then what happens next is typically they zap this egg with a little bit of electricity, and lo and behold it begins to divide and form an embryo.

This, of course, is the first mammal that was ever cloned. The first species that was cloned, I believe, it occurred in the 1950s. It was a carrot. But this creation of Dolly the sheep was the first example of a mammal being cloned. Prior to cloning Dolly, there had been some other vertebrates that were cloned, but Dolly was the first mammal. And, of course, we as humans are mammals. And the reason this created so much news is because Dolly a sheep, a mammal very similar to us, and what they did there was they took an udder, cell which is essentially a mammary duct cell, and they took the nucleus out of it from the donor sheep, and then they took another sheep and they took an egg from that sheep and removed the nucleus. And so they did the nuclear transfer technology, and so they had the DNA of this sheep in the egg from this sheep. They zapped it with electricity. They got it to grow in culture, and then they transplanted it into another female sheep. And this is, of course, the surrogate mother and Dolly was created.

And here is Dolly depicted here. This sheep is a genetic duplicate of this sheep, the one that you took the nucleus out of. This sheep can be construed as the twin or this one can be construed as the twin of this sheep.

Now, it is worth noting that Dolly was born on July 5, 1996. Almost immediately Dolly began to show signs of premature aging. Indeed, the researchers who have studied all the cloned mammals that have been cloned so far, pigs, goats, mice, they all show genetic defects in all of them.

Dolly manifested early arthritis; and, of course, she had to be euthanized, or put to sleep, recently because of the development of further medical conditions. She essentially experienced half the normal life expectancy of a normal sheep. And this is one of the principle issues why many people feel that to do cloning in humans, as some people are proposing, is morally and ethically reprehensible.

It took 237 attempts to create Dolly with many miscarriages, many sheep being born with very, very severe birth defects. So if we try to do this with humans, the question, of course, becomes how many humans will be born, how many babies will be born with birth defects? How will we take care of them? Who will be responsible for them?

One of the most disturbing things about all this is if we were able to overcome those immediate birth-related problems, what would the life of a person who was cloned be like? Would they manifest premature aging? Would they ultimately succumb to diseases at an early age? This is clearly experimentation of the absolute worst and most reprehensible kind, and there is general agreement that we should outlaw cloning specifically of this type, referred to as reproductive cloning.

What this House will engage in a tremendous amount of debate on over the next few days is the issue of whether or not we should allow something called therapeutic cloning or the creation of cloned embryos in the lab. I anticipate that there will be a substitute for my legislation being offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood). His legislation contends that it is best to simply outlaw the creation of a human being but to allow the unfettered creation of human embryos in the lab to be exploited for research purposes because of the supposed great potential of these to lead to cures to many diseases.

I know there are a lot of people who have some questions about this issue, and I would be very happy to yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), a distinguished freshman from the Flagstaff area. I understand he had some questions for me about this issue.

I would be happy to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to respond to his question. This is a very, very important issue, and it gets essentially to the crux of the debate we are going to have here on the floor of this body on Thursday when H.R. 534 comes up for discussion, debate, and consideration and vote, and I want to just point out one very very important thing about this.

They are trying to call embryo cloning somatic cell nuclear transfer, and the reason they are trying to do that, scientifically that is what it is, but the overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to all forms of human cloning. It is something like 65, 70, 80 percent of the American people are against all forms of human cloning, and so they are trying to put a pretty face on it so they are calling it somatic cell nuclear transfer.

The important point I want to raise I think was stated very nicely by the President's National Bioethics Advisory Commission back in 1997, and they said the commission began its discussion fully recognizing that any efforts in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo with the apparent potential to be planted in utero and developed to term.

So what they are saying here is this is cloning. So they may want to call it somatic cell nuclear transfer but it is definitely cloning.

They go on to say this is not science fiction you see in movies, but rather a reasonable and appropriate way to alleviate the horrors faced by patients suffering from deadly painful diseases. This kind of language in my opinion is reprehensible. There is no basis in science to make a claim like this, and I have been saying this over and over again. I would be very, very happy to debate these people who go around making these claims.

Therapeutic cloning has never been done. It is going to be debated here as though it is a scientific fact. It is a scientific fiction. It has never been demonstrated in humans. What is more, it has never even been demonstrated in an animal model. We purchase from research labs these animals that are genetically programmed to develop diabetes. We cannot take this technology and use it to even cure an animal. The advocates for embryo cloning do not have even one, one, example of where in an animal model they can cure disease; and for them to go so far as to say this has the potential to alleviate the horrors faced by patients suffering from deadly diseases, I think it is a horror that they would make such a grossly exaggerated and false statement, because it raises the false hopes of millions of Americans who suffer from these diseases. There is no scientific evidence that this has the potential to be effective at this time.

I apologize, this is a very, very long answer to the gentleman's question. But my legislation to ban cloning does not prohibit animal cloning, and it does not prohibit animal embryo cloning, and so the advocates for this will have unfettered ability to demonstrate that this works in animal models, and if they can demonstrate that it works in animal models, they can come back to the Congress and say we really feel very strongly that you need to allow this to move forward in human models, the Congress has the ability to reverse the law. But that is a grossly exaggerated claim.

I understand the gentleman wanted to ask me some more questions in a colloquy.

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

This is a very confusing quote because it really mixes two issues. It starts out saying cloning is a widely used, vital medical tool that has allowed scientists and researchers to develop powerful new drugs. What they are talking about is we have been cloning tissues in the labs for years, we have been cloning animals in the labs for years, we have been cloning DNA in the lab, and some of these cloning technologies are finding their way into the research and development arenas that are used for development of new drugs, produce insulin, useful bacteria in the lab. And so those statements are true.

But my bill does not ban those things. This group, CAMR, or the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, they are against my bill; but in that response they fail to point out that my bill does not ban all of that animal cloning and all of that DNA cloning, all that stuff that is going on.

What it specifically only bans is human cloning, an attempt to create a human embryo in the lab, and they seem to imply in the first sentence of that quote the gentleman just read that it is a vital medical tool. Those applications that would be permissible under my legislation are certainly vital, and they will proceed unfettered,

but human cloning is not a vital medical tool. There is not one research article where human cloning has been used to treat anybody of anything.

Might I also add, the crux of this debate is the whole issue of regenerative medicine and if a person gets sick, the traditional tools used by physicians are surgery and medications to make a person well; and of course there is therapy and there are lots of other modalities to make people well. But an additional tool is this concept of regenerative medicine where we take cells and put cells in a person's body and those cells make a person better, and adults themselves have actually been used in 45 human clinical trials to make people well.

Embryonic stem cells have never been used in a single clinical trial to ever make anybody well. Embryo stem cells have never been used in an animal model to heal an animal. There have been a couple of studies that seem to suggest that embryo stem cells might have some potential at some point in the future, but they do not have a model where we can take an animal with disease and make it well, and that is what they are trying to imply by this response.

Again, it is a very deceptive response, and I apologize for these lengthy responses to the gentleman's inquiries. These issues are just very, very complicated science, and it is very hard to do them justice by just giving 8-second sound-bite responses to the questions.

That is absolutely correct. The National Academy of Sciences panel made that recommendation, but then they acknowledged there were no bioethicists on the panel, and then they went on further to state that others should debate the ethics of this. There were no bioethicists. There were no theologians. There were no elected representatives from the people, no representatives from the community. And they wisely said that others should debate the morality and the ethics of this issue; and frankly, they wisely said that because the path that they are recommending that we allow the creation of human life in the lab for research purposes and then those human embryos are to be destroyed is an entirely new path for us to walk down.

Historically in our Nation we have always stood up for protecting life. The recent historical departure from that, Roe v. Wade, that decision was rendered in the context, at least my understanding of the interpretation of the decision of the court was not that the baby developing inside the woman is not alive and not that it is not human and not that it is a commodity that can just be manipulated and discarded, but that the right of reproductive freedom or privacy of the mother trumped the right to life of the baby, a decision I do not particularly agree with.

But now we are talking about going in a whole new direction. We are talking about creating life expressly for the purpose of exploiting it and destroying it. A parallel would be for a woman to deliberately try to get pregnant so she could have an abortion. Clearly this is a moral and ethical quagmire that I do not think we should walk down as a Nation.

I will just cite for you one example of where this would lead us if we allow therapeutic cloning or embryo cloning. The artificial womb is available to us today. You can take a mammalian embryo and drop it in the artificial womb, and it will pass from the embryonic stage into the fetal stage of development and can survive up to 30 days of development. That will be the next place these researchers will want to go to. Who on Earth would want to extract stem cells from an embryo and try to grow those embryo stem cells into, let us say you want heart tissue. Why would you want to go through the ordeal of in a petri dish trying to grow those cells into heart tissue when you could just much more cheaply and easily place that embryo into an artificial womb and then come back 2 weeks or 3 weeks later and get the tissue you want out of it? That is the slippery slope we are going down. So it is a moral and ethical minefield that I think we as a Nation should not enter into, and we should ban all forms of human cloning.

Actually, I do not know if the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) is going to change his language before it comes to the floor, but the language as I last saw it, it is not actually a ban. It is a moratorium. It is a 10-year moratorium on reproductive cloning, taking the cloned embryo and putting it in the uterus of a surrogate mother for the purpose of creating a child. It is a 10-year moratorium. It essentially is saying we do not think this is something we want to allow for the next 10 years, but in 10 years we may want to allow reproductive cloning. So I do not think it is a true ban.

The other point I want to mention, and I have debated my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, on this issue many times in the past, a reproductive-only ban is very, very difficult to enforce. Indeed, I have a quote from the Justice Department I am going to put up on the easel here in a minute where they state categorically it is going to be very, very hard to enforce. If you allow research cloning to proliferate all over the country, you are going to have dozens of labs producing human embryos for experimental research purposes. It would be very, very easy for an unscrupulous, dishonest physician to do this. I am a physician and I know as a fact that not every physician is an honest person. The medical profession draws its ranks from the human race and there are people who do bad things even within the medical profession.

It will be very easy for an unscrupulous physician to implant one of those human embryos into a woman in the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship, and it would be impossible for our Justice Department to police such a thing and prevent it from happening. Indeed, if a physician did that and a baby were to develop, what could the government do at that point? They certainly would not mandate an abortion on a woman like that. And so I feel very, very strongly that the Feinstein-Hatch-type approach in the other body or the Greenwood approach would actually help usher in reproductive cloning, the very thing that they say they want to prohibit.

Here again what they are trying to do is change the terminology. They have been losing the debate on this issue with the hearts and minds of the American people, so they are now trying to call it somatic cell nuclear transfer rather than embryo cloning or therapeutic cloning. When they called it those things, people understood exactly what it is. But when they say somatic cell nuclear transfer, suddenly people do not know what they are talking about and they may be able to get this thing through.

Clearly as a scientist, as a physician, I can tell you that you are talking about creating human embryos, there is no two ways around it, with the potential to develop into a human being. That is not only my opinion; it is the opinion of the Bioethics Advisory Commission. The same commission has a number of members who feel that therapeutic cloning or embryo cloning should be permissible, but they readily recognize that as soon as you take a somatic cell nucleus and put it in an enucleated egg, it involves the creation of an embryo with the apparent potential to be implanted in a uterus and developed to term. It is the procedure used to create Dolly. So to try to say it is not, I think, is misleading. The facts are the facts.

The gentleman raises an absolutely important point. That is, the debates that they are bringing up here were the same exact debates 10 years ago on fetal tissue research. One of the amazing aspects of all this is Senator Hatch was one of the people who led the charge against fetal tissue research in the other body 10 years ago, and now today he is leading the charge to allow embryo cloning, which is a great irony for me. As I mentioned to you before, there is no basis in science to make a claim like that. I find it very reprehensible for them to hold out hopes to millions and millions of Americans that this is going to be the cure for their condition. I will simply just point out, if that were the case, if this statement were true, you would go into the research labs at Harvard and Yale and UCLA and all the prestigious medical schools throughout the Nation and I would expect all the research scientists to be working on cloning, but in point of fact they are not. The reason they are not is because this is a bogus, absurd statement. There is no evidence in science that substantiates a claim like this, that you are going to be able to cure all these millions of Americans of all of these diseases.

I will just simply point out a very important point that they fail to mention. If that were the case, where would you get all the eggs to do all this? It took dozens and dozens of eggs to create Dolly. If you come down with one of these diseases they describe here, we cannot necessarily cure you with one egg. We might need a dozen eggs to get one good clone of you that might develop into an embryo. By the way, this is all science fiction, this is not real; but this is what they are claiming. You would literally need billions of eggs. Who is going to donate all these eggs? To get the eggs, to get a woman's egg, you have to give a woman powerful drugs that cause a phenomenon called superovulation, so instead of one egg developing you get a dozen eggs developing. The drugs have side effects. Thirty percent of women who take those drugs develop depression. You have to give them these powerful drugs, and then you have to give them a general anesthetic and do a surgical procedure to harvest the eggs. This is not some simple, minor procedure that you can have done in a medical office in 30 seconds. You are talking about an ordeal for a woman to donate her eggs. And for them to make the absurd notion that you are going to cure 100 million Americans with this, you would literally need 1 billion eggs.

Mind you, they do not have one, one example where they can do one of these things in an animal model. Not one. I have challenged some of the most prestigious scientists in the world with this question. Show me one, one article where you can do this in a human. None. I say show me one article, one research article, a peer-reviewed journal article where you can do this in an animal model. None. They have absolutely none. But they make these bald-faced, absurd assertions that they are going to cure 100 million people with all these conditions. I think it is shameful that they would seriously consider this.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to engage in this colloquy with the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman. It has certainly been a pleasure to engage in this colloquy. I would be very happy to recognize the gentlewoman from Colorado and yield to her if she would like to say a few words about this very important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and those were very well taken points. This is clearly a line in the sand. It is a demarcation point; and if we go across that line, if we say we are going to start creating human lives for the purpose of exploiting them for scientific research and then discarding them, where does that take us next? What comes around the corner? I have been arguing for years that it will usher in reproductive cloning.

Indeed, in testimony that we received in my committee, we had a Dr. Cohen, Brian Cohen, who represented the American Society of Reproductive Medicine; and in his testimony he repeatedly said ``We are opposed to reproductive cloning at this time,'' and he said it twice. Finally I asked him, ``Why did you say `We are opposed to reproductive cloning at this time'?'' And this fellow represents the Association of Fertility Experts in the United

States, and essentially his response to me was that once all the science is worked out on this where it can be done safely, they want to be able to do it. They want to be able to clone human beings. And this is the brave new world, no longer confined to fiction literature, but it has essentially arrived because the follow-ons to this will be genetic manipulation, genetic enhancements. Eugenetics is what it is called, an attempt to try to eliminate undesirable traits in our culture and our society. So people will begin to not only select the gender of their desired offspring, but they may actually want to manipulate the genetic code of their offspring so they can get a specific height or size or physical appearance or IQ. I would imagine athletic performance will be one of the things that they will go after.

And this is the Pandora's box of issues that we are opening up if we allow human cloning to occur in the United States. Therapeutic cloning, embryo cloning or reproductive cloning, it is the path we are going down. And I just want to underscore the importance of us banning all forms of human cloning, which is what we are able to do in the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, and I just want to again underscore that there are people who are going to try to put lipstick on the pig. They are going to try to say that this is not cloning; and they are going to call it somatic cell nuclear transfer, or they are going to try to call it nuclear transfer technologies; and we are going to hear this kind of language being used both in this body and the other body. It is cloning. It is creating human embryos through the process of cloning. And people need to remember that no matter what they call it, that is what it is.

I just want to underscore additionally that this is not purely a pro- life issue. Cloning of all types, therapeutic, embryonic, and reproductive cloning, has been made illegal in Germany by the leadership of the Green Party, which is pro-choice. Indeed, in the vote that we had passing my bill in the 107th Congress, I had seven or eight people voting for the legislation who had a 100 percent voting record with the National Abortion Rights Action League.

And so clearly this is not an abortion debate. It is different from that. There are a lot of people who are pro-life like myself who have a very strong moral and ethical objection to cloning on the basis of simply creating human life in the lab to be exploited and destroyed, a so-called utilitarian approach. But there are many people on the left who are strongly opposed to cloning because of their concern about eugenics, because of their concern about the impact this could have on the disability community, and very importantly there are a lot of people who are very concerned about the exploitation of women. If we are going to have in this country dozens of labs creating hundreds of human embryos every year for the purpose of doing research, where are we going to get those eggs from? Who is going to donate their eggs? Who will submit themselves to this kind of research? I will say who I think it will be. It will probably be poor women. It will probably be predominantly women of color.

Indeed, I want to read this quote from Judy Norsigian. She is the co- author of ``Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century,'' the Boston Women's Health Collective book, hardly a right wing group. What does she say? ``Because embryo cloning will compromise women's health, turn their eggs and wombs into commodities, compromise their reproductive autonomy, and with virtual certainty lead to the production of experimental human beings, we are convinced that the line must be drawn here.'' And I was very encouraged by this latter part of her quote. She is not only concerned about women being exploited, but she has a concern about the dignity, the human dignity, and the indignity of this to be creating human beings for experimental research purposes and then to be discarded.

If research cloning is allowed to proceed in this country, or therapeutic cloning unfettered, in my opinion what ultimately will happen, because it will be so expensive to get these eggs from women in the United States because they will have to pay women thousands of dollars to undergo the procedure, because of the fairly high incidence of depression in women who take these superovulatory drugs, we may have women requiring hospitalization following the egg donation procedure or maybe even going so far as attempting suicide, what I think they will end up doing is they will end up going to third world countries. They will end up going to Central America, South America, away from the trial attorneys in the United States that can lead to lawsuits, away from the prying eyes of the American press and where they can pay women peanuts in order to get their eggs; and that I think is one of the concerns of people like Judy Norsigian. She knows that ultimately the potential exists for women to be exploited, and that is just shameful that it would happen when there is no evidence that this could even work in animals. Indeed, the evidence, there was just recently an article in the mouse model where they tried to do therapeutic cloning and it did not work.

The other thing I want to just share is this quote from Daniel Bryant, who is the Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs. He says ``enforcing a modified cloning ban would be problematic and pose certain law enforcement challenges that would be lessened with an outright ban on human cloning. Anything short of an outright ban would present other difficulties to law enforcement. And what he is talking about here is if we take the approach advocated by the form of the legislation being promoted by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) in the House and Senators Hatch and Feinstein in the other body, just a reproductive ban, how will we enforce that? It will be impossible to enforce that. We will have all of these embryos in all of these labs. The Justice Department, police officers cannot monitor these labs regularly to make sure the embryos have been discarded rather than implanted in women. There will be no way to know whether or not reproductive cloning has occurred. So I feel very, very strongly that this is the best way for us to go.

I will also point out that the President has indicated that he wants a complete ban on all forms of human cloning, reproductive and so- called therapeutic cloning. So clearly, the time has arrived. It is critical that we as a Nation do the right thing. I believe the House of Representatives will do the right thing and ban human cloning in all of its forms, both embryonic cloning and so-called reproductive cloning, that all attempts at creating human embryos in the lab will be prohibited. This is an enforceable ban and a lasting ban. The advocates who say that we must allow embryo cloning in the lab because of its great potential to lead to cures of all these diseases, I again issue my challenge, show me the evidence.

Traditionally in this country we always have demonstrated that it works in animals before we attempt it in humans. Show us the evidence in the scientific literature that this works in animals. They cannot. They will not be able to. The reason they cannot is because it cannot be done. It has not been done in human models. Clearly this takes us down a very dangerous and precarious path, creating human life for the purpose of exploiting it and then destroying it. A very dangerous road for us to walk as a Nation. So I would encourage all of my colleagues to vote in support of the ban on human cloning that we will be debating in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, last May, the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources held a hearing on human cloning. The subcommittee was informed that research cloning of humans was unnecessary due to the exciting medical breakthroughs utilizing adult stem cells and other ethical avenues of research. We were told that scientists agree that cloning is dangerous and clones suffer from countless severe genetic disorders.

The Department of Justice informed us that it would be impossible to enforce a bill that allowed human cloning for the purpose of research and not reproduction. And we were warned by Dr. Zavos of Kentucky that unless a ban on human cloning was enacted, he and other rogue scientists would soon successfully clone humans.

Despite these warnings, researchers seeking to clone humans for research make hollow promises and offer false hope that such research will result in cures for numerous human ailments. The fact is human cloning is never necessary regardless of its intent, and better ethical research alternatives do exist.

Nearly every week, for example, new scientific breakthroughs utilizing adult stem cells are announced. Researchers report that they have grown an entire organ from adult stem cells. And just this week, scientists have announced that a type of cell found in blood can be turned into nearly any cell in the body.

These findings and others like them suggest that every one of us may carry our own ``repair kit'' that can be used to treat countless medical disorders and genetic diseases by allowing doctors to regrow organs and tissues from our own cells. And unlike destructive human cloning research that remains entirely speculative, adult stem cell therapies are already currently being used to treat a host of medical conditions.

There are no guarantees that allowing human cloning for research will produce cures or that cloned embryos will not be misused for other purposes. If we now permit the manufacturing of human embryos for human research, where do we draw the line? Do we only allow cloned embryos to grow for 5 days before they are destroyed in the process of extracting their stem cells? What about removing tissue from 5-week-old embryos? Should we consider harvesting the organs from 5-month-old fetuses? What will those who support destructive research claim is necessary next to advance science?

We must finally draw the line and stop the exploitation of all forms of human life. The science is clear. So is the moral issue. In my favorite movie, ``Rudy,'' a great scene has the priest telling Rudy there are two things in life he knows for sure, one is that there is a God, and, secondly, that he is not God.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to vote for the Weldon-Stupak bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit the following information from National Right-to-Life:

Congress is renewing consideration of whether to ban all

human cloning, as a number of other major nations have

already done. On Wednesday, February 12, the House Judiciary

Committee will act on the Weldon-Stupak bill (H.R. 534). This

bill, which is backed by President Bush, would ban the

creation of human embryos by cloning. In the Senate, the same

policy is embodied in the Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 245).

Those who favor cloning human embryos are proposing

competing legislation that would allow the mass cloning of

human embryos to be killed in research, but attempt to ban

implanation of such an embryo in a womb. In the House, we

expect that this ``clone and kill'' approach will be advanced

by Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-Pa.), who offered such a proposal in

2001. In the Senate, a cloning-embryos-for-research bill has

been introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Dianne

Feinstein (D-Ca.), and others as S. 303.

In recent days, a number of news outlets have transmitted

inaccurate reports about what these competing bills would

each allow and forbid--reports that obscure what the argument

is really about. These points of confusion are discussed in

more detail below.

president bush's position

President Bush has repeatedly called on Congress to ban all

human cloning (i.e., to ban the cloning of human embryos). In

remarks on January 22, the President said, ``I also urge the

Congress to ban all human cloning. We must not create life to

destroy life. Human beings are not research material to be

used in a cruel and reckless experiment.'' In his January 28

State of the Union speech, the President said, ``Because no

human life should be started or ended as the object of an

experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity,

and pass a law against all human cloning.'' In a speech on

human cloning last year, President Bush warned that unless

such legislation is enacted, human ``embryo farms'' will be

established in the United States. (See www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases/2002/04/print/20020410-4.html)

the situation in congress

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to mark up the

Weldon-Stupak bill (H.R. 534) on Wednesday, February 12, at

10:15 a.m., at 2141 Rayburn House Office Building. Once the

committee completes its work, the full House could take up

the bill at any time. H.R. 534 is nearly identical to the

measure that passed the House on July 31, 2001, by lopsided

bipartisan vote of 265-162 (roll call no. 304). When the

House considered the issue on that occasion, it decisively

rejected (249-178) as substitute amendment, the Greenwood-

Deutsch Amendment, that would have allowed the cloning of

human embryos for research (roll call no. 302).

The Senate companion to the Weldon-Stupak bill, the

Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 245), currently has 26

cosponsors. A radically different measure, the Hatch-

Feinstein bill (S. 303), has only eight cosponsors, but it

has considerable additional support, mostly among Senate

Democrats.

The Brownback-Landrieu bill has been referred to the

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP),

which is chaired by Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), who was a

cosponsor of the bill in the 107th Congress. The Hatch-

Feinstein bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary

Committee, which Hatch chairs. Whatever happens in these

committees, the full Senate ultimately will vote on both of

these diametrically conflicting approaches.

The recently selected Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist

(R-Tn.), said in a January 12 interview on Fox News Sunday,

``I am opposed to any time that you create an embryo itself

with the purpose being destruction, and that would include

the so-called research cloning. And remember, research,

cloning is just that, it's experimental. There's been no

demonstrated benefit of that to date, so I don't think you

ought to destroy life. . .''

The key differences between the two bills are discussed

below. In many recent news media reports on human cloning

issues, the differences have been mischaracterized, and the

specific activities that each bill would allow and prohibit

have been widely misunderstood.

misconceptions and facts

Misconception: The Brownback-Landrieu/Weldon-Stupak

legislation prohibits cloning of human ``cells,'' while the

Hatch-Feinstein bill would allow cloning of ``cells.''

Reality: The Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 245) and the

Weldon-Stupak bill (H.R. 534)-- like their predecessors in

the 107th Congress--explicitly allow ``the use of nuclear

transfer or other cloning techniques to produce molecules,

DNA, cells other than human embryos, tissues, organs,

plants, or animals other than humans.'' [Sec. 2 of the

bill, at (d) in H.R. 534 and at (e) in S. 245; boldface

added for emphasis] Thus, the methods currently used to

``clone'' new skin, for example, or to ``clone'' DNA, are

perfectly okay under the Brownback-Landrieu bill.

Moreover, any cloning method that would produce stem cells

without first producing and killing a human embryo--as

some researchers have claimed that they eventually will be

able to do--is explicitly permitted by this language. In

addition, the Brownback-Landrieu and Weldon-Stupak bills

place no restrictions on research of any kind on human ova

(``eggs'').

In short, the Brownback/Weldon legislation and the Hatch-

Feinstein legislation are alike

in that they would both permit cloning involving merely eggs,

cells, or tissues, but they differ on one proground issue:

The Hatch-Feinstein/Greenwood proposals would allow the use

of the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) process to clone

human embryos, and the Brownback/Weldon legislation would

forbid the use of SCNT to clone human embryos.

Verbiage by supporters of ``research cloning'' about

``eggs'' and ``cells'' is intended to conceal what the

argument is really about: whether it should be permitted to

clone human embryos.

Misconception: So-called ``therapeutic cloning'' does not

involve creating human embryos.

Fact: That SCNT using human genetic material will create a

developing embryo of the species Homo sapiens is something

that authorities on all sides agreed on until sometime in

2001, when some of the pro-cloning forces decided to try to

obscure this fact for political purposes. Among those who

clearly affirmed that SCNT will create human embryos were the

bioethics panels of both Presidents Clinton and Bush, the

embryo research panel at NIH, and the chief cloning

researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts.

Some samples of such statements, which pre-date the current

disinformation campaign, are posted here: www.nrlc.org/ Killing_Embryos/factsheetembryo.html

To cite just one example here, a group of scientists,

ethicists, and biotechnology executives advocating so-called

``therapeutic cloning'' and use of human embryos for

research--Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania,

Lee Silver of Princeton University, Ronald Green of Dartmouth

University, and Michael West, Robert Lanza, and Jose Cibelli

of Advanced Cell Technology--wrote in the December 27, 2000

issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association,

``CRNT [cell replacement through nuclear transfer, another

term for ``therapeutic cloning''] requires the deliberate

creation and disaggregation of a human embryo.'' They also

wrote, ``. . . because therapeutic cloning requires the

creation and disaggregation ex utero of blastocyst stage

embryos, this technique raises complex ethical questions.''

In its 2002 report on human cloning, the President's

Council on Bioethics, although divided on policy

recommendations, provided without dissent recommendations

regarding the use of honest terminology in this crucial

public policy debate, including acknowledging that successful

SCNT will create human embryos. The Council said, ``The

product of `SCNT' is not only an embryo; it is also a clone,

genetically virtually identical to the individual that was

the source of the transferred nucleus, hence an embryonic

clone of the donor.''

The Council recommended use of the terms ``cloning for

biomedical research'' and ``cloning to produce children'' to

distinguish between two of the purposes for which human

embryos might be cloned. (``Cloning for research'' and

``cloning for birth'' convey pretty much the same thing.) The

Council's discussion on accurate and neutral terminology is

here: www.bioethics.gov/cloningreport/terminology.html

The phrase ``reproductive cloning'' is misleading, because

whenever somatic cell nuclear transfer produces a developing

embryo, ``reproduction'' has occurred. The term ``therapeutic

cloning'' is misleading, because no therapies have been

demonstrated using cloned embryos (even in animals, as

discussed below), and the process is certainly not

``therapeutic'' for the human embryo who is dissected--which

is what the argument is about.

MISCONCEPTION: The Hatch-Feinstein bill would allow

research only ``unfertilized eggs up to 14 days.''

REALITY: As can be confirmed by reference to any biology

text or even any decent dictionary, a human ovum or ``egg''

is, by definition, a single cell. Moreover, it is a very

unusual cell--a gamete cell, which means it has only 23

chromosomes. An ovum has no sex.

As discussed above, once one has a complete nucleus from

any species that is activated (whether by sexual

fertilization or by asexual somatic cell nuclear transfer,

SCNT) and developing, then one has a developing embryo of

that species (sheep, cow, Homo sapiens, etc). There is no

such thing in biology or in any dictionary as a human ``egg''

or ``egg cell'' that has 46 chromosomes, is either male or

female, and is five days old (consisting of several hundred

cells) or even 14 days old (consisting of thousands of

cells). In short, calling a five-day-old or a two-week-old

human embryo an ``egg'' is an attempt to deceive the public

regarding what the policy argument is really about. We submit

that this is not an effort in which responsible journalists

should enlist.

The actual text of the Hatch-Feinstein bill coins the term

``unfertilized blastocyst.'' But ``blastocyst'' is simply a

technical term for an embryo at an early stage of

development. As for ``unfertilized,'' this is just another

word trick aimed at the gullible. Of course human embryos

produced by cloning will be ``unfertilized,'' because that is

what cloning is: asexual reproduction--no sperm. Every cloned

mammal in the world was unfertilized from the one-

celled embryo stage, and every one of them will be

unfertilized on the day they die. If a human embryo

created by cloning instead of fertilization is implanted

in a womb, is born, and lives to be eighty, she will still

be unfertilized.

MISCONCEPTION: The Hatch-Feinstein bill is a compromise

that would accomplish what almost everyone agrees on, banning

``reproductive cloning.''

REALITY: Far from representing ``common ground,'' the

Hatch-Feinstein bill represents a policy disfavored by most

Americans and strongly opposed by the Bush Administration. It

will not become law. But that does not bother many of its

backers, such as the biotechnology industry lobby, because

the primary purpose of the Hatch-Feinstein bill is to impede

enactment of the real ban on human cloning, by providing

political cover for lawmakers who favor allowing the creation

of human embryos for research.

Notwithstanding the marketing efforts of the biotechnology

industry lobby and its allies, the policy the Hatch-Feinstein

bill or the Greenwood amendment would enact a policy that is

far from a consensus position--indeed, a policy that the

substantial majority of Americans oppose. A Gallup poll in

May 2002 found that 61% of the American people opposed

``cloning of human embryos for use in medical research'' (34%

approved), which is precisely what the Hatch-Feinstein bill

is crafted to allow and indeed encourage. In other polls,

substantially higher numbers are opposed when it explained

that the human embryos will die in the research.

The Hatch-Feinstein bill is not a partial solution or a

middle ground. Rather, it is a step in the wrong direction.

The Hatch-Feinstein bill would give a green light to the

establishment of human embryo farms.

The ``clone and kill'' approach has already been

emphatically rejected by the Bush Administration and by the

House of Representatives (in 2001). Secretary of Health and

Human Services Tommy Thompson last year sent a letter to

Senator Brownback warning that such a bill would face a

presidential veto. Thompson wrote, ``The President does not

believe that `reproductive' and `research cloning should be

treated differently, given that they both require the

creation, exploitation, and destruction of human embryos . .

. the Administration could not support any measure that

purported to ban `reproductive' cloning while authorizing

research cloning, and I would recommend to the President that

he veto such a bill.'' (See www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/ ThompsontoBrownback.pdf)

The Hatch-Feinstein bill would give federal law enforcement

agencies responsibility for trying to enforce a ban on

implanting a cloned embryo in a womb--an approach that the

Justice Department in 2002 rejected as unworkable. The

Department explained that once large numbers of cloned human

embryos are created, there is no practical way to

prevent some of them from being implanted in wombs, and no

remedy to apply after that occurs. The testimony is posted

here: www.nrlc.org/killing_embryos/ Justice_Dept_on_cloning.pdf

MISCONCEPTION: The Hatch-Feinstein bill would ``ban human

cloning'' or ``ban the closing of human beings.''

REALITY: The Hatch-Feinstein bill does not ban ``human

cloning.'' It bans implanting a cloned human embryo ``into a

uterus or the functional equivalent of a uterus'' (the latter

term is not defined), an act to which criminal penalties are

attached. It also attempts to impose a rule against allowing

a cloned human embryo (a so-called ``unfertilized

blastocyst'') to develop past 14 days of age (Not counting

time frozen). Violations of this ``14-day rule'' are subject

to a civil fine of up to $250,000, and there is nothing in

the bill to prevent the threat of such a fine from being

applied even against a woman who carries an unborn cloned

human in utero, perhaps in an attempt to compel her to

procure an abortion.

In other words, the bill bans not ``human cloning,'' but

the survival of human clones, which is a very different

thing.

Any bill that permits cloning (somatic cell nuclear

transfer) with human nuclei does not ``ban human cloning,''

because such a bill allows the cloning of embryos of the

species Homo sapiens, and an embryo of the species Homo

sapiens is human (just as the cloned embryo that was later

born as Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was always

a member of the species Ovis aries).

As to whether a cloned human embryo is to be regarded as a

``human being,'' we would think that journalists would want

to avoid blatantly taking sides on that question. A statement

that the Hatch-Feinstein bill ``bans the cloning of human

beings'' is certainly taking sides on the issue, because it

amounts to a declaration that a two-week-old embryo of the

species Homo sapiens is not a ``human being.'' (If not, what

species of being is it?)

It appears that President Bush is among those who recognize

cloned human embryos as human beings: in his January 22

statement, the President said, ``I also urge the Congress to

ban all human cloning. We must not create life to destroy

life. Human beings are not research material to be used in a

cruel and reckless experiment.'' [emphasis added]

The National Right to Life Committee believes that if a

cloned human being is born, she should have the same status

as other humans--but Senator Hatch and some others apparently

are not so sure. In a press release dated February 5, 2002,

Senator Hatch said, ``No doubt somewhere, some--such as the

Raelians--are trying to make a name for themselves and are

busy trying to apply the techniques that gave us Dolly the

Sheep to human beings. Frankly, I am not sure that

human being would even be the correct term for such an

individual heretofore unknown in nature.''

As Slate.com columnist Will Saletan commented (``Killing

Eve,'' December 31, 2002, http://slate.msn.com/id/2076199/),

``The first cloned baby--Eve or whoever comes after her--

won't be fertilized. If fertilization is a prerequisite to

humanity, as Hatch and Feinstein suggest, that baby will

never be human. You can press the pillow over her face and

walk away.'' (See also: www.nrlc.org/killing_embryos/ arecloneshuman.html)

MISCONCEPTION: Those who favor cloning for research would

never allow clones to develop past two weeks of age.

REALITY: While the Hatch-Feinstein bill purports to

establish a two-week ``deadline'' for killing human clones,

there are substantial reasons to doubt that the biotechnology

industry would support such a limitation in a bill it

actually expected to become law. Already, some policymakers

are opening the door to ``fetus farming'' with human clones.

For example, the New Jersey legislature appears close to

giving final approval to a bill that would permit cloned

humans to be grown through any stage of fetal development,

even to birth, to obtain tissues for transplantation, as long

as they are not kept alive past the ``newborn'' stage. (SB

1909, as amended) Four members of the President's Council on

Bioethics wrote to Gov. James McGreevey to warn about the

bill's radical implications. (See www.nationalreview.com/ document/document020303c.asp)

Last year, researchers reported harvesting tissue from

cloned cows at six and eight weeks of fetal development, and

from cloned mice at the newborn stage. Both studies were

widely reported by the news media as breakthroughs for so-

called ``therapeutic cloning.'' Indeed, so far these are the

only two animal studies that have claimed to show

``therapeutic'' results from cloning.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong support for the Weldon-Stupak Human Cloning Prohibition Act. The passage of this bill is of utmost urgency as scientists in this country and around the world are making dangerous advances towards the creation of a cloned human being.

The science of human cloning may be difficult to explain and to understand to those of us who are not scientists, but its immorality is not without question. You do not have to be a scientist to know this is wrong. Whether produced for the intention of human reproduction or for the purpose of medical research, the fact remains the same: human cloning is simply wrong. It invariably requires the creation and killing of numerous human lives in the effort to produce either cloned cells for the purpose of research or cloned human beings.

Numerous ethical questions arise. Who, for example, would be the parents of a cloned human being? What rights would they have? And what about the potential to create human-animal hybrids through the transferring of human nuclear material into animal eggs? If we open the door to human cloning, these ethical problems will be unavoidable. Additionally, cloning cheapens all human life by making it a commodity, an object to tinker with, to alter, to change to a scientist's preset specifications. Manipulating the genetic outcomes of human reproduction render certain people desirable and others not. How then will society view these people determined less desirable? Are they of less human value?

In fact, if we do not enact a ban on human cloning, these situations I have described are just a few of the scenarios we will face in the near future. As one of the Nation's leading bioethicists, Dr. Leon Kass, has said, ``We are compelled to decide nothing less than whether human procreation is going to remain human, whether children are going to be made to order rather than begotten, and whether we wish to say yes in principle to the road that leads to the dehumanized hell of `Brave New World.' ''

The American people have spoken loud and clear on their view on this issue, as has the scientific community, our President, and this body of Congress last year. The national consensus is evident. Human cloning for any reason, whether for research or reproduction, should be prohibited.

Please join me in voting ``yes'' on the Weldon-Stupak bill and ``no'' on the Greenwood substitute.

National Right to Life

Committee, Inc.,

February 10, 2003.

Congress Resumes Action on Human Cloning Legislation this Week, As Supporters of Cloning Human Embryos Try to Fool Lawmakers, Journalists,

and the Public with Deceptive ``Egg-Speak''

introduction

Congress is renewing consideration of whether to ban all

human cloning, as a number of other major nations have

already done. On Wednesday, February 12, the House Judiciary

Committee will act on the Weldon-Stupak bill (H.R. 534). This

bill, which is backed by President Bush, would ban the

creation of human embryos by cloning. In the Senate, the same

policy is embodied in the Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 245).

Those who favor cloning human embryos are proposing

competing legislation that would allow the mass cloning of

human embryos to be killed in research, but attempt to ban

implantation of such an embryo in a womb. In the House, we

expect that this ``clone and kill'' approach will be advanced

by Rep. Jim Greeenwood (R-Pa.), who offered such a proposal

in 2001. In the Senate, a cloning-embryos-for-research bill

has been introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Dianne

Feinstein (D-Ca.), and others as S. 303.

In recent days, a number of news outlets have transmitted

inaccurate reports about what these competing bills would

each allow and forbid--reports that obscure what the argument

is really about. These points of confusion are discussed in

more detail below.

president bush's position

President Bush has repeatedly called on Congress to ban all

human cloning (i.e., to ban the cloning of human embryos). In

remarks on January 22, the President said, ``I also urge the

Congress to ban all human cloning. We must not create life to

destroy life. Human beings are not research material to be

used in a cruel and reckless experiment.'' In his January 28

State of the Union

speech, the President said, ``Because no human life should be

started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to

set a high standard for humanity, and pass a law against all

human cloning.'' In a speech on human cloning last year,

President Bush warned that unless such legislation is

enacted, human ``embryo farms'' will be established in the

United States. (See www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/ print/2002410-4.html)

the situation in congress

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to mark up the

Weldon-Stupak bill (H.R. 534) on Wednesday, February 12, at

10:15 a.m., at 2141 Rayburn House Office Building. Once the

committee completes its work, the full House could take up

the bill at any time. H.R. 534 is nearly identical to the

measure that passed the House on July 31, 2001, by lopsided

bipartisan vote of 265-162 (roll call no. 304). When the

House considered the issue on that occasion, it decisively

rejected (249-178) a substitute amendment, the Greenwood-

Deutsch Amendment, that would have allowed the cloning of

human embryos for research (roll call no. 302)

The Senate companion to the Weldon-Stupak bill, the

Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 245), currently has 26

cosponsors. A radically different measure, the Hatch-

Feinstein bill (S. 303), has only eight cosponsors, but it

has considerable additional support, mostly among Senate

Democrats.

The Brownback-Landrieu bill has been referred to the

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP),

which is chaired by Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), who was a

cosponsor of the bill in the 107th Congress. The Hatch-

Feinstein bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary

Committee, which Hatch chairs. Whatever happens in these

committees, the full Senate ultimately will vote on both of

these diametrically conflicting approaches.

The recently selected Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist

(R-Tn.), said in a January 12 interview on Fox News Sunday,

``I am opposed to any time that you create an embryo itself

with the purpose being destruction, and that would include

the so-called research cloning. And remember, research

cloning is just that, it's experimental. There's been no

demonstrated benefit of that to date, so I don't think you

ought to destroy life. . .''

The key differences between the two bills are discussed

below. In many recent news media reports on human cloning

issues, the differences have been mischaracterized, and the

specific activities that each bill would allow and prohibit

have been widely misunderstood.

misconceptions and facts

Misconception: The Brownback-Landrieu/Weldon-Stupak

legislation prohibits cloning of human ``cells,'' while the

Hatch-Feinstein bill would allow cloning of ``cells.''

Reality: The Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 245) and the

Weldon-Stupak bill (H.R. 534)-- like their predecessors in

the 107th Congress--explicitly allow ``the use of nuclear

transfer or other cloning techniques to produce molecules,

DNA, cells other than human embryos, tissues, organs,

plants, or animals other than humans.'' [Sec. 2 of the

bill, at (d) in H.R. 534 and at (e) in S. 245; boldface

added for emphasis] Thus, the methods currently used to

``clone'' new skin, for example, or to ``clone'' DNA, are

perfectly okay under the Brownback-Landrieu bill.

Moreover, any cloning method that would produce stem cells

without first producing and killing a human embryo--as

some researchers have claimed that they eventually will be

able to do--is explicitly permitted by this language. In

addition, the Brownback-Landrieu and Weldon-Stupak bills

place no restrictions on research of any kind on human ova

(``eggs'').

In short, the Brownback/Weldon legislation and the Hatch-

Feinstein legislation are alike in that they would both

permit cloning involving merely eggs, cells, or tissues, but

they differ on one profound issue: The Hatch-Feinstein/

Greenwood proposals would allow the use of the somatic cell

nuclear transfer (SCNT) process to clone human embryos, and

the Brownback/Weldon legislation would forbid the use of SCNT

to clone human embryos.

Verbiage by supporters of ``research cloning'' about

``eggs'' and ``cells'' is intended to conceal what the

argument is really about: whether it should be permitted to

clone human embryos.

Misconception: So-called ``therapeutic cloning'' does not

involve creating human embryos.

Fact: That SCNT using human genetic material will create a

developing embryo of the species Homo sapiens is something

that authorities on all sides agreed on until sometime in

2001, when some of the pro-cloning forces decided to try to

obscure this fact for political purposes. Among those who

clearly affirmed that SCNT will create human embryos were the

bioethics panels of both Presidents Clinton and Bush, the

embryo research panel at NIH, and the chief cloning

researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts.

Some samples of such statements, which pre-date the current

disinformation campaign, are posted here: www.nrlc.org/ Killing_Embryos/factsheetembryo.html.

The cite just one example here, a group of scientists,

ethicists, and biotechnology executives advocating so-called

``therapeutic cloning'' and use of human embryos for

research--Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania,

Lee Silver of Princeton University, Ronald Green of Dartmouth

University, and Michael West, Robert Lanza, and Jose Cibelli

of Advanced Cell Technology--wrote in the December 27, 2000

issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association,

``CRNT [cell replacement through nuclear transfer, another

term for ``therapeutic cloning''] requires the deliberate

creation and disaggregation of a human embryo.'' They also

wrote, ``. . . because therapeutic cloning requires the

creation and disaggregation ex utero of blastocyst stage

embryos, this technique raises complex ethical questions.''

In its 2002 report on human cloning, the President's

Council on Bioethics, although divided on policy

recommendations, provided without dissent recommendations

regarding the use of honest terminology in this crucial

public policy debate, including acknowledging that successful

SCNT will create human embryos. The Council said, ``The

product of `SCNT' is not only an embryo; it is also a clone,

genetically virtually identical to the individual that was

the source of the transferred nucleus, hence an embryonic

clone of the donor.''

The Council recommended use of the terms ``cloning for

biomedical research'' and ``cloning to produce children'' to

distinguish between two of the purposes for which human

embryos might be cloned. (``Cloning for research'' and

``cloning for birth'' convey pretty much the same thing.) The

Council's discussion on accurate and neutral terminology is

here: www.bioethics.gov/cloningreport/terminology.html.

The phrase ``reproductive cloning'' is misleading, because

whenever somatic cell nuclear transfer produces a developing

embryo, ``reproduction'' has occurred. The term ``therapeutic

cloning'' is misleading, because no therapies have been

demonstrated using cloned embryos (even in animals, as

discussed below), and the process is certainly not

``therapeutic'' for the human embryo who is dissected--which

is what the argument is about.

Misconception: The Hatch-Feinstein bill would allow

research only on ``unfertilized eggs up to 14 days.''

Reality: As can be confirmed by reference to any biology

text or even any decent dictionary, a human ovum or ``egg''

is, by definition, a single cell. Moreover, it is a very

unusual cell--a gamete cell, which means it has only 23

chromosomes. An ovum has no sex.

As discussed above, once one has a complete nucleus from

any species that is activated (whether by sexual

fertilization or by asexual somatic cell nuclear transfer,

SCNT) and developing, then one has a developing embryo of

that species (sheep, cow, Homo sapiens, etc). There is no

such thing in biology or in any dictionary as a human ``egg''

or ``egg cell'' that has 46 chromosomes, is either male or

female, and is five days old (consisting of several hundred

cells) or even 14 days old (consisting of thousands of

cells). In short, calling a five-day-old or a two-week-old

human embryo an ``egg'' is an attempt to deceive the public

regarding what the policy argument is really about. We submit

that this is not an effort in which responsible journalists

should enlist.

The actual text of the Hatch-Feinstein bill coins the term

``unfertilized blastocyst.'' But ``blastocyst'' is simply a

technical term for an embryo at an early stage of

development. As for ``unfertilized,'' this is just another

word trick aimed at the gullible. Of course human embryos

produced by cloning will be ``unfertilized,'' because that is

what cloning is: asexual reproduction--no sperm. Every cloned

mammal in the world was unfertilized from the one-

celled embryo stage, and every one of them will be

unfertilized on the day they die. If a human embryo

created by cloning instead of fertilization is implanted

in a womb, is born, and lives to be eighty, she will still

be unfertilized.

Misconception: The Hatch-Feinstein bill is a compromise

that would accomplish what almost everyone agrees on, banning

``reproductive cloning.''

Reality: Far from representing ``common ground,'' the

Hatch-Feinstein bill represents a policy disfavored by most

Americans and strongly opposed by the Bush Administration. It

will not become law. But that does not bother many of its

backers, such as the biotechnology industry lobby, because

the primary purpose of the Hatch-Feinstein bill is to impede

enactment of the real ban on human cloning, by providing

political cover for lawmakers who favor allowing the creation

of human embryos for research.

Notwithstanding the marketing efforts of the biotechnology

industry lobby and its allies, the Hatch-Feinstein bill or

the Greenwood amendment would enact a policy that is far from

a consensus position--indeed, a policy that the substantial

majority of Americans oppose. A Gallup poll in May 2002 found

that 61 percent of the American people opposed ``cloning of

human embryos for use in medical research'' (34 percent

approved), which is precisely what the Hatch-Feinstein bill

is crafted to allow and indeed encourage. In other polls,

substantially higher numbers are opposed when it is explained

that the human embryos will die in the research.

The Hatch-Feinstein bill is not a partial solution or a

middle ground. Rather, it is a step in the wrong direction.

The Hatch-Feinstein bill would give a green light to the

establishment of human embryo farms.

The ``clone and kill'' approach has already been

emphatically rejected by the Bush Administration and by the

House of Representatives (in 2001). Secretary of Health and

Human Services Tommy Thompson last year sent a letter to

Senator Brownback warning that such a bill would face a

presidential veto. Thompson wrote, ``The President does not

believe that `reproductive' and `research cloning should be

treated differently, given that they both require the

creation, exploitation, and destruction of human embryos . .

. the Administration could not support any measure that

purported to ban `reproductive' cloning while authorizing

research cloning, and I would recommend to the President that

he veto such a bill.'' (See www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/ ThompsontoBrownback.pdf).

The Hatch-Feinstein bill would give federal law enforcement

agencies responsibility for trying to enforce a ban on

implanting a cloned embryo in a womb--an approach that the

Justice Department in 2002 rejected as unworkable. The

Department explained that once large numbers of cloned human

embryos are created, there is no practical way to prevent

some of them from being implanted in wombs, and no remedy to

apply after that occurs. The testimony is posted here:

www.nrlc,org/killing_embryos/Justice_Dept_on_cloning.pdf.

Misconception: The Hatch-Feinstein bill would ``ban human

cloning'' or ``ban the cloning of human beings.''

Reality: The Hatch-Feinstein bill does not ban ``human

cloning.'' It bans implanting a cloned human embryo ``into a

uterus or the functional equivalent of a uterus'' (the latter

term is not defined), an act to which criminal penalties are

attached. It also attempts to impose a rule against allowing

a cloned human embryo (a so-called ``unfertilized

blastocyst'') to develop past 14 days of age (not counting

time frozen). Violations of this ``14-day rule'' are subject

to a civil fine of up to $250,000, and there is nothing in

the bill to prevent the threat of such a fine from being

applied even against a woman who carries an unborn cloned

human in utero, perhaps in an attempt to compel her to

procure an abortion.

It other words, the bill bans not ``human cloning,'' but

the survival of human clones, which is a very different

thing.

Any bill that permits cloning (somatic cell nuclear

transfer) with human nuclei does not ``ban human cloning,''

because such a bill allows the cloning of embryos of the

species Homo sapiens, and an embryo of the species Homo

sapiens is human (just as the cloned embryo that was later

born as Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was always

a member of the species Ovis aries).

As to whether a cloned human embryo is to be regarded as a

``human being,'' we would think that journalists would want

to avoid blatantly taking sides on that question. A statement

that the Hatch-Feinstein bill ``bans the cloning of human

beings'' is certainly taking sides on the issue, because it

amounts to a declaration that a two-week-old embryo of the

species Homo sapiens is not a ``human being.'' (if not, what

species of being is it?)

It appears that President Bush is among those who recognize

cloned human embryos as human beings: in his January 22

statement, the President said, ``I also urge the Congress to

ban all human cloning. We must not create life to destroy

life. Human beings are not research material to be used in a

cruel and reckless experiment.'' [emphasis added]

The National Right to Life Committee believes that if a

cloned human being is born, she should have the same status

as other humans--but Senator Hatch and some others apparently

are not so sure. In a press release dated February 5, 2002,

Senator Hatch said, ``No doubt somewhere, some--such as the

Raelians--are trying to make a name for themselves and are

busy trying to apply the techniques that gave us Dolly the

Sheep to human beings. Frankly, I am not sure that human

being would even be the correct term for such an individual

heretofore unknown in nature.''

As Slate.com columnist Will Saletan commented (``Killing

Eve,'' December 31, 2002, http://slate.msn.com/id/2076199/),

``The first cloned baby--Eve or whoever comes after her--

won't be fertilized. If fertilization is a prerequisite to

humanity, as Hatch and Feinstein suggest, that baby will

never be human. You can press the pillow over her face and

walk away.'' (See also: www.nrlc.org/killing_embryos/ arecloneshuman.html).

Misconception: Those who favor cloning for research would

never allow clones to develop past two weeks of age.

Reality: While the Hatch-Feinstein bill purports to

establish a two-week ``deadline'' for killing human clones,

there are substantial reasons to doubt that the biotechnology

industry would support such a limitation in a bill it

actually expected to become law. Already, some policymakers

are opening the door to ``fetus farming'' with human clones.

For example, the New Jersey legislature appears close to

giving final approval to a bill that would permit cloned

humans to be grown through any stage of fetal development,

even to birth, to obtain tissues for transplantation, as long

as they are not kept alive past the ``newborn'' stage. (SB

1909, as amended) Four members of the President's Council on

Bioethics wrote to Gov. James McGreevey to warn about the

bill's radical implications. (See www.nationalreview.com/ document/document020303c.asp).

Last year, researchers reported harvesting tissue from

cloned cows at six and eight weeks of fetal development, and

from cloned mice at the newborn stage. Both studies were

widely reported by the news media as breakthroughs for so-

called ``therapeutic cloning.'' Indeed, so far these are the

only two animal studies that have claimed to show

``therapeutic'' results from cloning.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003. This bill criminalizes the act of cloning humans, importing cloned humans and importing products derived from cloned humans. It is what is needed, and it is what President Bush has asked for, a comprehensive ban against cloning people. It has bipartisan cosponsorship and was reported favorably by the Committee on the Judiciary on February 12.

Today we are considering more than the moral and ethical issues raised by human cloning. This vote is about providing moral leadership for a watching world. We have the largest and most powerful research community on the face of the earth and we devote more money to research and development than any other nation in the world. Although many other nations have already taken steps to ban human cloning, the world is waiting for the United States to set the moral tone against this experimentation.

Currently in the United States there are no clear rules or regulations over privately funded human cloning. Although the FDA has announced it has the authority to regulate human cloning through the Public Health Service Act and the Food, Drug and

Cosmetic Act, this authority is unclear and has not been tested. The fact of the matter is that the FDA cannot stop human cloning, it can only begin to regulate it. This will be a day late and a dollar short for a clone that is used for research, harvesting organs, or born grotesquely deformed.

In November 2001, researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts announced that they had cloned the first human embryo. Others have indicated that they are prepared to utilize existing technology to clone a human baby. On December 26, 2002, Clonaid announced the birth of the first cloned human baby. Although the Clonaid announcement appears to have been a hoax, there are a growing number of individuals who claim that they can and will clone a human being. In light of these announcements, it has become imperative that the Congress act immediately to prevent the cloning of human embryos from continuing.

Others argue that cloned humans are the key that will unlock the door to medical achievements in the 21st century. Nothing could be further from the truth. These miraculous achievements may be found through stem cell research but not from cloning. Let me be perfectly clear. H.R. 534 does not in any way impede or prohibit stem cell research that does not require cloned human embryos. This debate is whether or not it should be legal in the United States to clone human beings. Nothing more and nothing less.

While H.R. 534 does not prohibit the use of cloning techniques to produce molecules, tissues, organs, plants, DNA cells other than human embryos, and animals other than humans, it does prohibit the creation of cloned embryos. This is absolutely necessary to prevent human cloning because, as we all know, embryos become people. If scientists were permitted to clone embryos, they would eventually be stockpiled and mass marketed. In addition, it would be impossible to enforce a ban on human reproductive cloning. Let me repeat that. It would be impossible to enforce a ban on human reproductive cloning because once a cloned human embryo is implanted into a woman's uterus, it can grow and become a baby. Therefore, any legislative attempt to ban human cloning must include embryos.

Should human cloning ever prove successful, its potential applications and expected demands would undoubtedly and ultimately lead to a worldwide mass market for human clones. Human clones would be used for medical experimentation, leading to human exploitation under the good name of medicine. Parents would want the best genes for their children, creating a market for human designer genes. Again, governments would have to weigh in and decide questions such as what rights do human clones hold, who is responsible for them, who will ensure their health, and what interaction will clones have with their genealogical parent.

As most people know, Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996. Since that time, scientists from around the globe have experimentally cloned a number of monkeys, mice, cows, goats, lambs, bulls and pigs. It took 277 attempts to clone Dolly; 276 failures before success. These later experiments also produced a very low rate of success, a dismal 3 percent. Now some of the same scientists would like to add people, human beings, to this experimental list. As it turns out, Dolly the sheep was also a failure. It just took 6 years to realize it. On February 14, Dolly the sheep was euthanized as a result of complications linked to what some geneticists are speculating were signs of premature aging.

Human cloning is both ethically and morally offensive. It diminishes the careful balance of humanity that nature has installed in each of us. I believe we need to send a clear and distinct message to the watching world that America will not permit human cloning and that it does not support scientific research into cloning human embryos. This bill sends this message, by permitting cloning research on human DNA molecules, cells, tissues, organs, or animals but preventing the creation of cloned human embryos.

Mr. Chairman, I urge all Members to unequivocally say no to human cloning by supporting H.R. 534. Stop human cloning and preserve the integrity of mankind and allow legitimate scientific research to continue.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. As I recall, when Moses came down from the mountain, he had 10 commandments with him. One of them said thou shalt not murder and the other said thou shalt not steal, and I do not think anybody in their right mind would say that criminal laws saying that murder and theft are criminal in nature is imposing religious views on anybody. They are both wrong; they are both criminal.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

(Mr. CHABOT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 90 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, what we just heard seems to indicate that the material we are talking about is ``just an egg.'' I would like to quote from Dr. John Gerhart, who is on the other side of this issue, he comes from Johns Hopkins University, at a press conference that was held yesterday by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) and the supporters of his amendment.

Dr. Gerhart said, ``I contend it is an embryo. I don't think anybody is saying that it is just an egg.''

This follows along with what President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission stated in June of 1997. The executive summary says, ``The Commission begins its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo, with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.''

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), the author of the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, during this general debate we have heard from the opponents of this legislation that scientific research would come to a screeching halt if a ban on cloning of human embryos is enacted. There would be no more stem cell research, there would be no in vitro fertilization, and on and on and on.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The bill itself in section 302(d) says, and I quote, ``Nothing in this section restricts areas of scientific research not specifically prohibited by this section, including research in the use of nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques to produce molecules, DNA, cells other than human embryos, tissues, organs, plants, or animals other than humans.''

What this section says is that all of this type of scientific research that is going on now will be able to continue as long as cloned human embryos are not used. That is a big difference. If a scientist wants to create human embryos and peddle them around the world and around this country to make a profit, that will be prohibited. But if a scientist wants to do scientific research, including stem cell research, on material other than cloned human embryos, which include adult stem cells, then that will be able to continue to proceed.

This bill draws a line, a very reasonable line, between science and ethics. That reasonable line is whether a cloned human embryo is used. Should a cloned human embryo be created and used, yes, this bill criminalizes it, as it should; but if the research uses any other material besides cloned human embryos, the criminal penalties of this bill do not apply, and that research will be able to proceed.

I would hope that the Members of this House will listen to the fine points of this debate and ignore allegations that have been made that are not contained in the bill, and pass it.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I believe this is a constructive addition to the bill, I am prepared to support it, and urge that the Members adopt it. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the debate on whether or not human embryos should be cloned is one that goes across religious lines, it goes across philosophical lines, and it goes across political lines; and I certainly can respect those who come down on the other side of this piece of legislation. But this amendment in the nature of a substitute is the equivalent of a political knuckle ball thrown into the debate on whether or not human embryos should be cloned.

In June of 1997, President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Committee issued its report entitled ``Cloning Human Beings.'' I referred to this in the general debate, but I want to refer to this again because this is the crux of the argument against the Greenwood substitute. The executive summary of President Clinton's blue ribbon commission states in part: ``The commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.''

The whole question around the Greenwood substitute amendment is how to police the cloned human embryos once they are created. Sure, some of them may be used for purposes that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) described in his eloquent opening statement, but others can be implanted in utero and be developed to term. And what does the government do in that case when somebody for whatever purpose they want to announces that they have developed a cloned human being?

This substitute is a big mistake for a number of reasons, and it should not be supported. Most notably it would make the prohibitions against human cloning virtually impossible to enforce, as I have just described. It would foster the creation of cloned human embryos through the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency of the Federal Government; and it would trump States that wish to prohibit cloning. As I have already stated, allowing the creation of cloned embryos by law would enable anyone to attempt to clone a human being. While most individuals do not have the scientific capacity to clone human embryos, once they have been cloned, there has been no mechanism for tracking them and to determine what use those cloned human embryos are being put to. In fact, one would logically expect an organization to authorize the cloned human embryos pursuant to this substitute to be prepared to produce an abundance of cloned embryos for research. Meanwhile, those without the capabilities to clone human embryos could easily implant any one of the legally cloned embryos if they had the opportunity and a child would develop.

The fact is any legislative effort in order to be effective to prohibit cloning must allow enforcement to occur before the cloned embryo is implanted. Otherwise, it is too late, and that is the big deficiency of the Greenwood substitute. The substitute attempts to draw a distinction between necessary scientific research in human cloning by authorizing the Department of Health and Human Services to administer a quasi-registry, quasi because the embryos are not in the custody of HHS. They are maintained by private individuals. However, let us be clear that the crux of this substitute is to invoke a debate on stem cell research. A political knuckle ball in this debate on stem cell research is a red herring.

Just read the bill. First, therapeutic cloning does not exist, not even for experimental tests on animals. Second, the substitute would require authorized researchers to destroy unused embryos, the first Federal mandate of its kind and a step that is extremely controversial. Third, H.R. 534 within its text allows for research using stem cells. Again, the bill does not prohibit stem cell research, notwithstanding the allegations by those who are opposed to it.

Currently, private organizations are able to conduct unfettered research on embryonic stem cells. Further, in August 2001, President Bush announced that Federal funds could be used for research on existing stem cell lines. H.R. 534 would do nothing to hinder that research.

The bill would also not affect research using adult stem cells. Adult stem cells are the other area of stem cell research which is much less controversial and which has been successful in over 45 clinical trials. In fact, adult stem cells have been utilized to treat multiple sclerosis, bone marrow disorders, leukemia, anemia, and cartilage defects, and immuno-deficiency in children.

Adult stem cells have been extracted from bone marrow, blood, skeletal muscle, the gastrointestinal tract, the placenta, and brain tissue to form bone marrow, bone, cartilage, tendon, muscle, fat, liver, brain, nerve, blood, heart and other cells. H.R. 534 would not interfere with this work. It would not interfere with this work. But it prohibits the production of cloned embryos. It is a cloning bill, not a stem cell research bill.

Fourth, the substitute prohibits States from adopting laws that prohibit or more strictly regulate cloning within their borders. It is a Federal preemption. Try telling any of our constituents that they cannot ban human cloning through their State legislatures and I will tell you they will disagree.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, the substitute contains a 10-year sunset provision. If this were to be enacted, Congress would have to go through this debate once again before the sunset occurs. The ethical and moral objections to human cloning will not change 10 years from now or 50 years from now or forever. However, the proponents of human cloning will continue to fight

for their right to produce human clones in America, and authorizing a subsequent ban on human cloning could become even more controversial.

That is why Members on both sides of the aisle should rise in opposition to the substitute, defeat it, and pass H.R. 534.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania is way off base, and I can tell my colleagues from my own family experience how far off base he is.

My mother died of Alzheimer's disease. For the last year and a half of her life, she did not know who I was, she did not know who my wife was, she did not know who my sister was, or who my kids were. And to insinuate that those of us who disagree with the gentleman's amendment are Luddites and insensitive is flat-out wrong.

Furthermore, my beloved wife, who I have been married to for almost 26 years, has had a spinal cord injury. She has no sensitivity below her waist. She is a wonderful woman. She has given me two wonderful children, and we have lived day by day and minute by minute with that kind of a condition; and she and I are both in favor of what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) is trying to do because there is an ethical issue and there is a moral issue involved in this, which many people want to turn their backs on. But in my family we have to live with it every day and every minute, and we will until death do us part.

Now, the whole issue on this amendment, to get back to my initial remarks, is the policing of what is done with the cloned embryos that the Greenwood amendment allows. 99.99 percent of the people that do the experimentation on cloned embryos may do it in an entirely ethical manner. But all we need is one unethical person to implant a cloned embryo in utero and we have a cloned baby. And once that unethical person plants the cloned embryo in utero and it starts developing as a fetus, what does that gentleman's amendment do about it? Absolutely nothing. Are we going to throw somebody in jail for doing that? Are we going to throw the mother in jail for doing that? No way. The baby is going to be born, and we are going to have a cloned human being.

Again, Bill Clinton's bioethics panel said: ``The commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.''

Your substitute does not deal with this issue at all. That is why it is fatally flawed.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, there is a snowstorm bearing down on this city. There are numerous Members who have asked me to speed this debate up so that they can get out of town and not be marooned here. I would ask the gentleman from Florida to have compassion on those Members and withdraw his unanimous consent request. If he persists, I am constrained to object.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I think this is a good, fair rule. It allows an honest debate of the issues. As many of my colleagues know, I am a physician. I still see patients once a month at the veterans clinic in my congressional district, and I practiced medicine for 15 years before I was elected to the House of Representatives. I took care of a lot of patients with paralysis, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease. I saw firsthand on a daily basis the hardship those people and their families went through.

Indeed, I wanted to share with all my colleagues that my father died of complications of diabetes disease. I had six uncles. When I was growing up as a kid, one of my favorite uncles was my Uncle John. He died of complications of Parkinson's disease. So if there were evidence to support the position being held by some people in this body and some people in the scientific community that there was great potential from therapeutic cloning, I would be the first to admit it. I would be the first person to acknowledge it. I could not deny it because it would be evident in the medical literature. But the fact of the matter is, the evidence is not there.

What we are debating today is the ethical parameters on the whole issue of regenerative medicine. For decades, doctors have had at their disposal surgical techniques to help people and make them well. They have had medications, drugs that they could use to make people well. And in the past 20 years, they have been making use of something called regenerative medicine using what is called stem cells. This bill, contrary to what some people say, does not ban stem cell research. It does not ban embryo stem cell research. It specifically bans the creation of cloned human embryos.

We voted on this very issue. We debated this issue on the floor of this House a year and a half ago. It was July of 2001. The progression of science is something that we need to include in this debate. I went through the medical literature just about the last 12 months; and I have about 88 studies showing adult stem cells in humans and that they have tremendous potential, that they are actually finding application in the treatment of 45 different diseases.

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could produce a study that shows that therapeutic cloning in humans has potential, but there is not even one study. Indeed, I wish I could introduce a study that shows that therapeutic cloning in animals has potential; but, likewise, there is not a single study even in animals. It has been tried in mice, and it has not worked. Therapeutic cloning has never been done.

We are debating here on the floor of the House therapeutic cloning as though therapeutic cloning exists, as though it is around the corner. Let us get realistic here. People are going to come to the floor, and they are going to suggest that we have to hold out therapeutic cloning because it is the only hope for these people. We are funding NIH $27 billion a year. We have thousands of researchers all over the Nation doing all kinds of research using all kinds of modalities, surgeries, therapies, medications; and this regenerative medicine issue is one little slice of what researchers are exploring to help these people with these conditions. We are essentially debating a subsegment of that. And some people will come down here and hold that up as though it is the only thing out there.

Let us get realistic. It has never been done. They tried it in mice, and it was published in ``Cell.'' For those who do not read the scientific literature, this is one of the most prestigious journals that cell biologists read. I will quote from the study. It says: ``Our results raise the provocative possibility that even genetically matched cells derived by therapeutic cloning may still face barriers to effective transplantation for some disorders.'' They tried therapeutic cloning in a mouse model of disease and it failed dismally. So not only can we not produce a study that shows that it works, we can produce studies that show that it does not work.

I think the time has arrived for us to do the right thing. This is a moral and ethical decision. We are talking about scientists creating human embryos for the purpose of exploiting them and destroying them, and there is no scientific evidence today that this is justifiable.

Mr. Speaker, I will include for the Record the studies I referred to above.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I want to commend him for his leadership on this very, very important and critical issue.

As I mentioned in the debate on the rule, the science on so-called therapeutic cloning is going nowhere, so

why do all of these scientists say that they want to allow embryo cloning? Why do all of these biotechnology companies say they want to allow embryo cloning, even though the chairman of Geron, Thomas Okarma, is quoted on the issue of therapeutic cloning, and he is quoted as saying, ``The odds favoring success are vanishingly small, and the costs are daunting. It would take thousands of human eggs on an assembly line to produce a custom therapy for a single person.''

He goes on to say, ``This process is a nonstarter.''

So if this therapeutic cloning is such a nonstarter as Okarma says, why do the people in the biotech industries, why do all of these scientists say we have to allow this, we have to make this legal? What is the rationale behind all of this?

I will tell my colleagues what they want to do. They want to create human models of disease. Research scientists today in America, if they want to do research on Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, they buy mice and they buy rats that have been engineered to manifest that disease, and what they want to do is they want to create human beings that are engineered to manifest these diseases.

Now, can we imagine that? They want to have shelves with diseases on them filled with human embryos and sell them for a profit to research labs, and that is where we are going with this issue.

Some people get up and ridicule this concept of a slippery slope, but that is exactly what we are on. Because I will tell my colleagues what is next. The artificial womb technology is there. It is available to us today. One can take these embryos and put them in these baths and one can grow them well beyond the embryonic stage, and that will be the next thing we will be debating and talking about in this Chamber if the positions held by some people who want to allow embryo cloning are allowed to move forward.

These are the same exact arguments that occurred in this House on fetal tissue research 10 years ago; and people got up and claimed, we have to allow this, it is the great potential of the future. It turned out to be an absolute bust. It was a disaster. It went absolutely nowhere. Therapeutic cloning is going nowhere. It has been a year and a half since we originally debated this issue. I placed a mountain of evidence before this body here showing that the adult stem cells are working out great, the embryo stem cells are going nowhere, the cloned stem cells are going absolutely nowhere. So why are we still here? Why are we debating this issue? It is because there are people who want to create human models of disease that they can sell for a profit. It is an abomination.

Vote for this bill. Vote against the substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I again want to commend him for his work in this area and his eloquent statements on the floor.

I rise in very strong opposition to this substitute, and I encourage all my colleagues to vote against it and to vote in favor of the underlying bill.

Let me address, first out, one of the issues that seems to be implied by some of the discussion that I have heard so far, and that is, these embryos that are created through somatic cell nuclear transfer process are somehow not embryos or they are cells or they are cheek cells or they are stem cells. I am a scientist, a doctor. I am not an expert in this area, but I know a fair amount about it. I did research in molecular genetics as an undergraduate. I am a physician.

When a person does somatic cell nuclear transfer they are creating a human embryo. Indeed, President Clinton's Bioethics Council has said that, and President Bush's Bioethics Council has said that, a human embryo resulting from the nuclear transfer process is a human embryo. It is contrasted from a human embryo created by sexual reproduction, which is a unique embryo; whereas when we create a human embryo through somatic cell nuclear transfer, we are essentially creating an identical duplicate or twin.

So let us do away with that issue here and now. This is very, very clearly a human embryo. That is what the gentleman from Pennsylvania wants to allow to be created for research purposes. What will happen if we do that? What will happen if we go down that route?

I contend that a lot of things will happen that I think are very, very concerning. Number one, we are going to have a lot of research labs that will need eggs. Where will they get the eggs? They will have to get them from women. How do we get eggs from women? Well, we give them drugs that cause a phenomenon called superovulation. We have to do periodic ultrasounds to make sure they do not develop ovarian cysts, and they can get depression from those drugs; and then once the eggs are ripe, we have to give the woman a general anesthetic to harvest the eggs. And we will have these research labs that are going to need these large quantities of eggs, and this is why these biotech executives say this is a nonstarter in terms of developing so-called therapeutic cloning. The logistics of this are just unimaginable of how we would execute something like this.

One important thing I want to say, if we have all of these labs generating these eggs, we are going to have unscrupulous physicians implanting one of these in a woman, and we are going to usher in the very thing that the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from Florida say they are against. They say they are against reproductive cloning, but our own Justice Department says there will be no way to police this. We will have all of these embryos in all of these labs, and the only way to prevent it is to stop it from the very, very beginning.

Might I also just reiterate, adult stem cell research is moving along very nicely. We have heard some very impassioned comments about Parkinson's disease. I want to quote from Dennis Turner, who had his Parkinson's disease treated successfully with adult stem cells. We cannot even produce one research study in a rat where we can cure Parkinson's disease with embryo stem cells or cloned stem cells. But I have got a real live human being here. He says, they were not fetal cells, they were my cells, so I would not have to take any anti- rejection medications the rest of my life. Dennis Turner previously could not even hold a newspaper, and now he is hardly on any medication at all. The adult stem cells are working great.

I say to my colleagues this alternative, this substitute, is unnecessary and unethical. We do not want to go down the path of creating human life for the purpose of exploiting it in the lab and then destroying it.

Vote no on this substitute. Vote yes on the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to get at this issue of eggs and how are you going to get them. The gentleman from Pennsylvania has implied that my concerns about women's donation are unfounded. Let me just underscore from the start that there are a lot of people on the left that have a lot of concern about this issue. One of the first people who came into my office to join forces with me on preparing this legislation was Judy Norsigian. She is pro-choice. She helped write the Boston Women's Health Cooperative book, ``Our Bodies, Ourselves.''

Indeed, I think some of the concern about this issue is why I think seven Democrats, seven or eight Democrats with a perfect voting record with NARAL, supported my bill in the 107th Congress and it is over this concern. The gentleman from Pennsylvania implied it's ridiculous, women aren't going to be lining up. The issue is essentially this. If you are going to start doing a lot of this experimentation, you are going to need a lot of eggs because not every egg you put the nucleus in and then zap it with electricity begins to divide and form an embryo. There is a fairly high failure rate if you

actually read the research articles, which I have done. There is a pretty high failure rate. So you are going to need lots of eggs to create a few embryos and you are going to need a lot of women to get a lot of eggs.

And who will donate their eggs? Well, it is going to be women who will do it for money. It is a painful procedure. Women do this right now. The fertility clinics frequently deal with women who are older and their eggs are not very viable and so they pay typically coeds to donate some of their eggs so that some of these older women can actually have a baby. It is already going on today. But it is going on today on a very limited level and it is going on today for what I think is an ethically and morally appropriate purpose: somebody wants to have a baby, somebody struggling with infertility. But now we are going to be talking about creating these eggs for this research.

The research, Mr. Chairman, is going nowhere. I have read the reports. It is not going to ever lead to any cures. The reason the biotech industry wants the Greenwood amendment to prevail and does not want my position to prevail is because they want to create human models of disease so that we can get away from using rats and mice as our models for disease. To me, this is a huge issue. You are talking about creating human embryos, modifying them genetically to preprogram them with diseases, and then selling them for a profit by the biotech industry.

I said before, it is an abomination. If you do not think that is an abomination, I do not know what you think is. To me it is absolutely ghastly.

Let me just close by again saying all of this research can proceed with animal models unfettered under the provisions of the bill that the chairman has brought to the floor. You can continue with animal research. You can clone DNA. You can clone animals. You can clone cells. You just cannot create a human embryo under the provision of this legislation. I think it is the right thing to do. I think that morally it is the correct thing to do. I would again encourage all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this substitute and vote ``yes'' on the underlying bill.

I want to commend the gentleman from Wisconsin for his very eloquent remarks.