From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Fri Jun 22 2001 - 06:52:18 MDT
>From The Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23750-2001Jun20.html
-
Bush Backs Broad Ban On Human Cloning
Prohibition Would Cover Embryos for Research
Rep. James C. Greenwood, (R-Penn.) has a bill on cloning that's less
restrictive than the one backed by the White House. (Dennis Cook - AP)
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2001; Page A01
The Bush administration announced yesterday that it favors the most
far-reaching of several competing bills to make human cloning a federal
crime -- one that would outlaw not only the creation of cloned children, but
also the creation of cloned human embryos for research.
The administration's position, presented by Deputy Secretary for Health and
Human Services Claude A. Allen to a congressional subcommittee, echoes that
of many religious organizations and some ethicists who oppose the creation
of human embryos for research.
In an unusual political crossover, it also has the support of some
reproductive rights advocates who are not opposed to human embryo research
but who fear that studies on human embryo clones might hasten the arrival of
the first cloned child and other worrisome human genetic manipulations.
But such a total ban on all human cloning research is opposed by other
ethicists and many biomedical researchers, who believe that studies on "stem
cells" from 5-day-old cloned human embryos offer the best chance for
developing promising new therapies for a variety of debilitating diseases.
That constituency favors a different bill before Congress that resembles the
law in England -- one that allows scientists to create cloned human embryos
for research as long as they don't transfer the embryos to a woman's womb
where they can grow into babies.
The deep differences of opinion expressed by Allen and other witnesses
during a 4 1/2-hour hearing of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on
health revealed how difficult it might be for Congress to accomplish what
had at first seemed a simple task: outlawing human cloning.
Everyone at yesterday's hearing expressed support for that general
principle. But a decision on how to implement such a ban is forcing
legislators to consider not only the relative promise of various branches of
experimental medicine, but also such difficult ethical issues as the
relative moral standing of early embryos and dying children.
"Human cloning rises to the most essential question of who we are and what
we might become," said subcommittee Chairman Michael Bilirakis (R-Fla.).
Allen's remarks, vetted at length by the White House on Tuesday, were the
first clarification of what President Bush meant by his previous, general
assertions opposing human cloning. But they addressed just one aspect of an
escalating national debate on human cloning and embryo cell research.
A divided Bush administration has been struggling for months over the
related quandary of whether taxpayer money should support research efforts
to turn cells from spare human embryos slated for destruction at fertility
clinics into organ-regenerating cures. Like the cloning debate, that
controversy has given rise to unusual political bedfellows.
Several antiabortion members of Congress -- including Sen. Orrin G. Hatch
(R-Utah), who once led the charge against human fetal tissue research --
recently wrote Bush to express their support for federal funding of human
embryo cell research. Allen said the administration's decision on that
issue, which does not require congressional approval, will be announced by
the president at a later time.
Yesterday's hearing dealt with the separate question of whether any
scientists, even those using only their own private funds, should be allowed
to create cloned human embryos from scratch for research. Some scientists
believe that cloned embryos offer greater promise as sources of potentially
curative stem cells than standard embryos do because the cells would be
perfectly compatible with the patient from which the embryo was cloned.
Legislators focused yesterday on a bill, introduced by Reps. David Joseph
Weldon (R-Fla.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), that would make it a crime for
anyone to create a human cloned embryo for any purpose, and on another,
sponsored by Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-Pa.) and others, that would outlaw
the creation of such embryos only if there is an "intent" to develop them
into babies.
Allen said the administration has concluded that any law allowing the
creation of cloned human embryos would be problematic because some
scientists might be tempted to go ahead and let them mature into babies.
"It's too easy, too simple to cross that line," Allen said.
Moreover, others asked, what if such a pregnancy were discovered? "No
government agency is going to compel a woman to abort the clone," said
University of Chicago medical ethicist Leon Kass. "And there would be an
understandable swarm of protest should she be fined or jailed before or
after she gives birth."
Because of such difficulties, Allen said, the administration favors the
broader Weldon bill -- although full support still depends on the resolution
of some "technical issues."
Some opponents of the less restrictive Greenwood bill noted the difficulty
of legislating scientists' intent -- a problem that Greenwood said could be
resolved, perhaps, by changing the bill's language to outlaw the transfer of
a cloned embryo into a woman's womb.
Supporters of the Greenwood bill said they are appalled that some people
would rather protect a 5-day-old ball of cells than an ailing child or
adult. Early embryos may deserve more respect than other cells, several
said, but no court has ever suggested that they have human rights and it
would be unethical to protect them at a sick person's expense.
"I do not believe that the Congress should prohibit potentially life-saving
research on genetic cell replication because it accords a cell -- a special
cell, but only a cell -- the same rights and protections as a person," said
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).
Harvard medical ethicist Louis Guenin concurred, saying research on human
embryo clones with the goal of creating cures for the sick is "not only
permissible but virtuous."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
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