2003 Legislative Sessions a Challenge and a Reward for Pro-Lifers.

In the 14 years since the Supreme Court's Webster decision left the door to passing protective legislation slightly ajar, pro-lifers have worked relentlessly to find and enact measures the High Court would allow. That dogged determination, in conjunction with vision and shrewdness, has resulted in thousands of proposed bills and many legislative victories.

Ironically, with prospects for success better than ever, pro-lifers must now be more vigilant than ever to ensure that genuinely radical pro-death laws do not pass. In most instances, these assaults on human dignity are in the area of human cloning.

NRLC State Legislative Director Mary Spaulding Balch told NRL News that "23 states this session have proposed bills dealing with cloning, and there will be more to come." She cited a table that appeared in USA Today February 24 as illustrative of the deception that is at work.

The chart has three categories, she explained. The first listed states with bills to ban all human cloning. Clear enough.

The second category was described as bills that "ban cloning to produce a child," Balch noted. While this sounds unambiguous, these are, in fact, "clone-and-kill" proposals. A new human being is created by cloning to be researched on. But that same new human being must be destroyed by day 14 in most bills.

A third category was listed as intending to "regulate cloning for research," which again means a new human being is created. The language ominously talks about keeping tabs on these cloned human embryos to ensure that they are not implanted in a woman.

However, were a cloned human embryo implanted, pro-lifers would obviously never support aborting the child. And, in any event, under Roe v. Wade that decision would rest with the woman who is carrying the cloned baby.