Hatch backs research cloning. (Insider Report).(Brief Article)

"It's time to stop calling Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a conservative -- at least on social issues," commented political analyst Lee Davidson of Salt Lake City's Deseret News for May 8th. "The final sign that Hatch has metamorphosed into a social-issue moderate came last week when he decided not only to support human cloning for research, but also to help lead the charge for it with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass."

Regular readers of THE NEW AMERICAN have been aware for some time that Hatch reliably supports key liberal causes (see, for instance, the profile entitled "Liberal in Conservative Garb" in our October 9,2000 issue). Davidson notes that for more than a decade Hatch has been working closely with his "good friend" Ted Kennedy to devise "compromises on everything from day care funding to AIDS to homosexual rights to insurance for the poor."

But when Hatch embraced embryonic stem cell experimentation -- which cannibalizes living human embryos for medical research -- it outraged his social conservative constituency in Utah. After vacillating over the issue of cloning for research, Hatch announced on April 30th that, after "countless hours of study, reflection and, yes, prayer," he would support human embryo cloning for research. "I ...