Broad anti-cloning bill introduced

Broad anti-cloning legislation was introduced in the Senate and House of Representatives Thursday that would ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning. The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001, introduced by Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), imposes criminal penalties for cloning research involving human embryos, including cloning embryos as sources of cells and tissues for human therapies. The bill asserts that "it will be nearly impossible to ban attempts at 'reproductive cloning' once cloned human embryos are available in the laboratory because: cloning would take place within the privacy of a doctor-patient relationship; the transfer of embryos to begin a pregnancy is a simple procedure; and any government effort to prevent the transfer of an existing embryo, or to prevent birth once transfer has occurred would raise substantial moral, legal, and practical issues."

Brownback told reporters that "creating cloned live-born children begins by creating cloned human embryos, a process which some also propose as a way to create embryos for research or as sources of cells and tissues for possible treatment of other humans.... There is no need for this technology to ever be used with humans--whether for reproductive purposes or for destructive research purposes." Weldon, a physician, told BioCentury that there is no need to use cloned human embryos to develop therapies. "Show me the therapies. There aren't any. It isn't therapeutic. It is destructive," he said. ...