Quick Links Home Abortion  Stem Cell Research & Cloning Partial Birth Abortion  Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia		Press Release   New Jersey Law Makes Cloning Ban Urgent   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2003   Contact Don Nelson, Nevada LIFE, 775-530-0029 The following statement can be attributed to Nevada LIFE President Don Nelson: A bill passed yesterday by the New Jersey legislature (AB 2840 and S 1909) would allow the cloning of human beings for research purposes, not just in the first days of human life and development, but at least until the moment of birth.  While the bill says that cloning is a crime in New Jersey, this is only possible because of the bizarre definition the legislature has given to cloning.  Cloning, known as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT), entails removing genetic material from a person’s body cell and injecting it into a hollowed out unfertilized egg, which is then stimulated to begin embryonic development.  The New Jersey bill says that SCNT is legal, but cloning is not.  The legislature can say that cloning is illegal because of the way it has defined both cloning and a human clone in the bill.  As currently written, the bill defines human cloning as having occurred not at the point of Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT), but at sometime after the birthing process.  It says: “As used in this section, ‘cloning of a human being’ means the replication of a human individual by cultivating a cell with genetic material through the egg, embryo, fetal and newborn stages into a new human individual.”  This makes it legal to clone a human being, implant the cloned human embryo into a uterus, real or artificial, and then develop this cloned human being through out the pregnancy period of the human clone’s life.  But it would make it illegal to let the human clone live sometime past birth, until some undefined period when the state of New Jersey recognizes the clone as “new human individual.”  Through the whole time of pregnancy researchers would be able to use “cadaveric” (the bill’s term) tissue for research and transplantation purposes without penalty.  This is human farming.  Nevada LIFE condemns this law. It is immoral and inhumane to intentionally create humans only to destroy them.  It is inhumane to use humans as a means to someone else’s end without consent.  It is likewise abhorrent to use humans for research purposes without consent and without benefit to the subject.  Nevada LIFE also condemns without reservation the stated purpose of helping the New Jersey biotech industry with taxpayer funding.  This bill demonstrates the need for the United States Senate to finally pass the Brownback-Landrieux Human Cloning Prohibition Act, passed by the Congress earlier this year, which would ban all human cloning in the United States, and which is supported by Senator Ensign and opposed by Senator Reid.  See the Nevada LIFE website for more cloning information. www.nevadalife.org.            30-