ABOUT STEM CELLS AND CLONING.

Editor's note: This guest column is by Gunter N. Franz, who has a Ph.D. degree in physiology and biophysics from the University of Washington. He is an associate professor in the Department of Physiology at West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown, West Virginia. Gunter Franz is the husband of Wanda Franz, Ph.D., president of NRLC.

The House of Representatives recently passed a bill banning the private and public use of human cloning for any purpose. Opponents to the ban protested that the bill would not only ban reproductive but also "therapeutic" cloning, which is the cloning of a new human being for research, medical, or industrial purposes and then later killing him while he is still in the embryonic stage. And that they found unacceptable--the banning, not the killing.

The pro-cloning lobby consists of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (representing 1,000 or more clients), patients' advocacy groups, celebrities who themselves are suffering from serious diseases or have relatives who do, and "progressives" who fear that giving human beings any respect and protection at the embryonic stage undermines abortion rights.

In spite of this formidable opposition, the bill passed 265-162. Supporting the ban were 200 Republicans, 63 Democrats, and 2 Independents--a coalition ranging from conservative Republicans to Socialists. If your representative is one of these, send a note of thanks and encouragement.

Against the ban, that is in favor of creating human beings by cloning and then killing them after they have served someone else's purpose, were 143 Democrats and 19 Republicans. The bill faces a difficult path in the Senate, where anti-life Democrats are in control.

Behind the opposition to the ban is the desire to use cloning for the production of human embryonic stem cells for research and industrial exploitation.

WHAT ARE STEM CELLS?