Human Cloning Legislation in Congress: Misconceptions and Realities.

For further information, contact the Federal Legislation Department at the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) at Legfederal@aol.com or 202-626-8820, and visit the Human Cloning page on the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org/killing_ embryos/index.html.

Introduction

The urgent issue of human cloning is once again in the lap of the U.S. Senate - - which so conspicuously failed to deal responsibly with the issue during the 107th Congress (2001-2002).

The public deserves to know what the fundamental policy argument is really about - - but the biotechnology industry lobby and its allies are working overtime to generate smokescreens of evasions and euphemisms. Regrettably, some journalists - - whether out of sympathy for one side of the debate, ignorance of the mechanics of human cloning, gullibility, or some combination of these factors - - have disseminated reports that badly misrepresent the differences between the competing human cloning bills in Congress. In some cases, these reports go beyond murkiness and distortion into the realm of the absurd - - for example, stories that use the term "egg" to refer to a member of the species Homo sapiens (46 chromosomes) who has developed for five days or even two weeks.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify what the argument is really about. In reality, neither side's bill would restrict research on human ova ("eggs"), and both sides' bills would allow the use of cloning methods to produce human DNA, cells, or tissues. Moreover, neither side's bill restricts research using stem cells taken from human embryos created through in vitro fertilization - - whether it involves embryonic stem cell lines that were established before August 9, 2001 (which may be eligible for federal funding), or from embryos newly obtained from fertility clinics. The fundamental difference is this: The Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 245) and the Weldon-Stupak bill (H.R. 534) would ban the creation of human embryos by cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer, SCNT), while the Hatch-Feinstein bill (S. 303), and the similar Greenwood-Deutsch Substitute Amendment rejected by the House, would allow human embryos to be created by cloning and then killed for biomedical research (including but not limited to "stem cell research.")

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