---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 15:30:10 PST
From: AFP <C-afp@clari.net>
Subject: Bush backs ban on human cloning
WASHINGTON, March 28 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush opposes
human cloning research on moral grounds and would support
legislation to ban such research in the United States, the White
House said Wednesday.
"The President believes that the moral and ethical issues posed
by human cloning are profound and cannot be ignored, even in the
quest for scientific discovery," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer told
reporters.
Bush believes any attempt to clone a human being would present a
grave risk to both mother and child, said Fleischer, who noted Bush
supported an existing presidential directive prohibiting federal
funds for human cloning.
Then-president Bill Clinton in 1997 decreed that five-year
moratorium in anticipation of as-yet absent legislative action to
prohibit the practice.
Asked specifically whether Bush would back an overall ban on
such activities, Fleischer replied: "The President will work with
Congress on that, because the President believes that no research to
create a human being should take place in the United States."
The spokesman's comments came as a growing chorus of voices in
the US Congress called for a ban on human cloning.
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