Pro-lifers Battle to Pass Effective Bans on Human Cloning.(status of various state bills)

First, the very good news. In the space of three days, two states gave final approval to bills to ban the creation of human embryos by cloning.

On March 24, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) signed a complete ban on human cloning into law. The Arkansas bill passed the state House 88-5 and the state Senate 34-0. The House rejected an amendment to permit human cloning for research.

Just two days later North Dakota gave final approval to a bill patterned after the Brownback-Landrieu bill that is currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate.

The North Dakota state senate passed the ban 46-0, the House 90-1. Governor John Hoeven (R) signed the bill into law April 7.

But as explained by Richard Doerflinger in his story on page 34, there are many cloning bills in the state legislatures, some of which are so radical proponents have had to sneak them in under the radar.

In New Jersey and New York, extremist pro-cloning measures were advertised as "bans." New Jersey's bill was headed for easy passage until the real agenda was exposed.

The New Jersey cloning bill purported to prohibit the cloning of a human being. However, the cloning of a human being is defined to mean "the replication through the egg, embryo, fetal and new born stages into a new human individual."