Quick Links Home Abortion  Stem Cell Research & Cloning Partial Birth Abortion  Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia		Opinion -- Stem Cell Research Pass The Human Cloning Prohibition Act S. 1899 Patrick Beckwith Spokesman, Nevada LIFE The Nevada Appeal, March 2002 Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, once a compelling science fiction classic, has evolved into a prophecy come true. Huxley’s fantastic story featured an assembly line approach to making human beings outside the womb. Frighteningly, this fantasy is nearing reality under the guise of human cloning. That is why it has become crucial for the United States Senate to pass S. 1899, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act (co-sponsored by Nevada Senator John Ensign). The bill, along with its House of Representative companion bill, H.R. 2505, would ban all human cloning. The House version was passed by a substantial majority nearly six months ago, yet the Senate bill has been languishing in committee, and only now is gearing up for a vote. Cloning is an effort to create humans as “copies” of other humans. This process entails taking genetic material from a person’s body cell and injecting it into an egg, which is then stimulated to begin embryonic development. Currently cloning is divided into two categories, reproductive and therapeutic. Reproductive cloning, the cloning of embryos for live birth, dehumanizes human reproduction. In addition, it violates human dignity by treating human beings as products, mere carriers of traits that others find useful. Moreover, attempts at live birth will require the “trial and error” deaths of countless human embryos. Dolly the cloned sheep was born after 276 failed attempts and then developed arthritis at an unusually young age. The few cloned humans who survive may suffer from devastating health problems. “It is questionable whether there are any clones that are entirely normal,” Ian Wilmut, who produced Dolly, said in a commentary. “The present methods of nuclear transfer are error-prone.” There is an alternative bill before the U.S. Senate, S. 1893, introduced by California Senator Diane Feinstein and co-sponsored by Nevada Senator Harry Reid, which would ban reproductive cloning, but allow so-called therapeutic cloning to continue. The first problem with this legislation is that it would be impossible to enforce. Clearly, once any type of cloning is permitted, the logical next step is that people will use it to procreate. If a woman had a “therapeutic” cloned egg implanted in her uterus, how would Senator Feinstein suggest we stop the live birth? (Perhaps the Chinese Reproduction Police could open up shop in America and perform government forced abortions like they do at home). Cloning human embryos for research, so-called therapeutic cloning, demeans human life by creating new humans solely to destroy them. Certainly, all people hope scientists find new ways to reduce human suffering and treat life-threatening illness. However, human cloning does not treat any disease but merely mass-produces human beings for the purpose of experimentation and destruction. A full ban on human cloning will not interfere with medical research, because cloning embryos for stem cell experimentation is increasingly recognized as a wasteful, unreliable and unnecessary path to medical research. The most beneficial stem cell research today uses stem cells from adult tissue, umbilical cords and other sources that involve no harm to human life. New cures for disease can be pursued without creating human lives in the laboratory solely to destroy them. The effective and morally acceptable way to prevent human cloning is to forbid its use to make humans in the first place. The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001 (S. 1899, H.R. 2505) will achieve this important goal.