[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 7 (Thursday, February 5, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S434-S439]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HUMAN CLONING PROHIBITION ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED
The Senate continued with the consideration of the motion to proceed.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, earlier today, a request was made to
consider the cloning legislation that had been introduced by my friend
and colleague, Senator Bond. Objection was made to the consideration of
that legislation by the Senator from California.
I want to just indicate to our Members that I think Senator Feinstein
was quite right to file that objection. Many of us who are on the Labor
Committee believed we would be debating the Satcher nomination this
afternoon. It is an enormously important matter that has been delayed
too long. We have an outstanding nominee. In fairness, we should be
continuing that debate today. The leadership has decided to move on to
this cloning legislation.
I believe that this legislation that is being proposed is one of the
most important scientific and ethical issues of the 21st century. The
legislation itself was introduced 2 days ago. It was put on the
calendar 1 day ago. It has not received 1 day of committee hearings. It
has not received 1 minute of committee markup. This legislation is a
matter of enormous significance and importance to the research
communities all across this country and they understand that this
legislation does not only impact human cloning.
As the research community has pointed out, technologies that would be
banned under Senator Bond's bill offer the key for reaching resolution
of a number of very important diseases: Cancer, diabetes, birth
defects, arthritis, organ failure, genetic diseases, severe skin burns,
multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and spinal cord injuries. Stem
cells may be the key to reproducing nerve cells, which is not possible
today, and other cells that may be used to treat Alzheimer's disease,
Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease. The major researchers in
every one of these areas oppose strenuously the Bond legislation
because they believe that it will provide a significant barrier to
meaningful progress in a number of promising research areas.
I will be delighted to discuss these issues, as Senator Feinstein
believes we should, in a timely way so that we can at least have an
opportunity to consider these measures in the committee and report
those out.
Therefore, I join Senator Feinstein in objecting to the consideration
of cloning legislation at this time. We have introduced legislation of
our own on this subject. We hope that the Senate will consider it in
due course, and that we can work out an acceptable compromise on this
issue to give it the careful action it deserves. A rush to enact bad
legislation on this subject would be far worse than passing no
legislation at all. Every scientist in America understands that, and
the American people should understand it, too.
Several months ago, the world learned of one of the most astounding
developments in modern biology--the cloning of a sheep named Dolly.
This incredible scientific achievement awakened widespread concern
about the possibility of a brave new world, in which human beings would
be made to
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order and where individuals would seek to achieve a kind of immortality
by reproducing themselves. There is widespread agreement among
scientists, ethicists, and average Americans that production of human
beings by cloning should be prohibited.
The President reacted rapidly and responsibly to this scientific
advance and the unprecedented issues it raised by asking the National
Bioethics Advisory Commission to study the issue and make
recommendations. The Commission recommended that creation of human
beings by cloning should be banned for at least five years, and the
Administration has submitted legislation to implement this
recommendation.
The legislation that Senator Feinstein and I have introduced will
assure the American public that reproducing human beings by cloning
will be prohibited. It follows the President's legislation and the
recommendations of the Commission. It makes it illegal to produce human
beings by cloning, and establishes strict penalties for those who try
to do so.
If the legislation the Majority Leader is seeking to call up achieved
this objective, I believe that it would be passed unanimously by the
Senate. Unfortunately, it goes much farther. It does not just ban
cloning of human beings, it bans vital medical research related to
cloning--research which has the potential to find new cures for cancer,
diabetes, birth defects and genetic diseases of all kinds, blindness,
Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, paralysis due to spinal cord
injury, arthritis, liver disease, life-threatening burns, and many
other illnesses and injuries.
All of these various kinds of research have broad support in Congress
and the country. A blunderbuss ban on cloning research would seriously
interfere with this important and life-saving research, or even halt it
altogether. Scientists, physicians and other health professionals,
biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical companies, and citizens and
patients working with organizations such as the Cystic Fibrosis
Foundation, the Parkinson's Action Network, the AIDS Action Council,
the American Diabetes Association, and the Candlelighter's Childhood
Cancer Foundation understand this. The Senate should understand it,
too.
Let me read from a letter signed by the organizations I have just
cited and many others as well and sent to members of Congress on
January 26, 1998. The participating organizations said, ``We oppose the
cloning of a human being. We see no ethical or medical justification
for the cloning of a human being and agree . . . that it is
unacceptable at this time for anyone in the public or private sector,
whether in a research or clinical setting, to create a human child
using somatic cell nuclear transfer technology.''
But they go on to say, ``Poorly crafted legislation to ban the
cloning of human beings may put at risk biomedical research.''
They point to a long list of diseases where cloning research could be
critical, including cancer, diabetes, allergies, asthma, HIV/AIDS, eye
diseases, spinal cord injuries, Guillain-Barre syndrome, Gaucher
disease, stroke, cystic fibrosis, kidney cancer, Alzheimer's
disease''--the list goes on and on.
They conclude: ``We urge the Congress to proceed with extreme caution
and adhere to the ethical standard for physicians, `first do no harm.'
We believe that there are two distinct issues here, cloning of a human
being and the healing that comes from biomedical research. Congress
must be sure that any legislation which it considers does no harm to
biomedical research which can heal those with deadly and debilitating
diseases.''
These are reasonable tests for legislation in this important area.
First, do no harm. Proceed with extreme caution. No one can pretend
that the legislation the Majority Leader is seeking to call up meets
these tests?
Proceed with extreme caution! The Majority Leader's legislation was
introduced on Tuesday of this week. There has not been a single day of
hearings held on it. Not one single day. I doubt that more than a few
members of this body have even had the opportunity to read the
legislation.
Many of our offices have been deluged with calls from health
organizations, scientific bodies, and individual scientists and
physicians who are seriously concerned about the damage this bill may
do to fundamental research and to possible discovery of long-sought
cures for dread diseases. Within a few days, we will have dozens if not
hundreds of distinguished scientific bodies and disease societies
expressing their opposition to this bill in its current form. As far as
I know, there is not a single major scientific body of any stature that
has endorsed this legislation.
What is the rush? What is the rush? It is not as if, despite the
absurd publicity given to Richard Seed, a baby will be cloned tomorrow.
To quote again from the letter I cited earlier, ``The American Society
for Reproductive Medicine, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and
the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology have all
stated that their members will not seek to clone a human being. These
three associations include essentially every researcher or practitioner
in the United States who has the scientific capability to clone a human
being.''
It is also important to recognize that the Food and Drug
Administration already has broad jurisdiction over human cloning, and
would act vigorously to shut down any clinic that operates without FDA
approval. Such approval depends on a finding that human cloning is safe
and effective. But given the current state of science, no human cloning
procedure could possibly be called safe at this time. The FDA approval
process is not a permanent ban on human cloning, but it effectively
bans the procedure for the near future.
So we have a situation where the procedure is not yet perfected,
where the scientists who are competent to clone a human being say that
they will not do it, and where the FDA already has the legal tools and
responsibility to prevent it. We do not need to act today--and we
should not act today--because this bill goes far beyond the simple
prohibition of the creation of a human being by cloning.
The sponsors of this legislation state that all they want to do is
ban cloning of a human being and that they do not want to interrupt
important research. But their bill goes far beyond that, and it does
not deserve to pass.
This bill would clearly interfere with medical research that offers
hope for a cure of many deadly diseases. A letter I received two days
ago from leaders of the Society for Developmental Biology states: ``As
active researchers in developmental biology, we understand the
implications of the Dolly cloning results for basic science and human
health.'' These techniques are essential for basic research because, as
the letter goes on to say, ``Many diseases, including heart disease,
diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases (such as Parkinson's Disease)
involve the depletion or destruction of a particular cell type. One of
the great hopes in medicine is to learn ways to replace the lost or
damaged cells, for example by stimulating the body to regenerate its
own missing cells or by growing the cells in culture and providing them
to patients. The main obstacle is that most of the needed cell types
cannot be grown in culture, nor can their growth be stimulated in any
known way. Dolly was grown from the nucleus of an adult cell,
proving that the genetic material of an adult body cell can be
reprogrammed by the egg to restore the genetic potential for
specializing into all possible cell types. Basic research on genetic
programming will likely lead to novel transplantation therapies for
numerous human diseases. In essence, we all carry in our cells a
library of all the information needed to build a healthy human, and
Dolly proves that the information can be reactivated and used again.
What are the implications? For example, instead of diabetes meaning a
lifetime of insulin injections accompanied by serious side effects,
perhaps we can learn how to cause the reactivation of pancreas
development genes and the regeneration of the missing cell types. Such
exciting ideas are no longer far-fetched.''
The key ingredients of this research offer great hope. DNA from an
adult cell is placed in an egg cell that has had its own DNA removed.
The egg cell then begins to grow and divide under the instructions of
the adult cell DNA. The procedure involves what is called
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``somatic cell nuclear transfer technology.'' In the case of Dolly, the
technology was used to create a sheep embryo from an adult sheep cell.
The embryo was implanted in the womb of the female sheep and ultimately
resulted in the birth of a baby sheep named Dolly.
The legislation that Senator Feinstein and I have introduced makes it
illegal to implant a human embryo using this technique in a woman's
womb. Without that, no baby, no human being can be created by current
cloning technology. This is what Dr. Seed says he is going to do. This
is what most ethicists oppose. This is what the American people want
banned--and our legislation will do it.
But the bill proposed by the Majority Leader will go much farther. It
will block this new technology in all other cases as well. It will make
it impossible to carry out the research that the overwhelming majority
of scientists and researchers say is so important. It will make it
impossible to use this new technology to grow cells that can be used to
cure diabetes or cancer or Alzheimer's disease or spinal cord injury.
The Majority Leader's bill--page 2, line 13, paragraph 301 is
entitled, ``Prohibition on cloning.'' It is the heart of the bill. It
states, ``It shall be unlawful for any person or entity, public or
private, in or affecting interstate commerce, to use human somatic cell
nuclear transfer technology.'' That is the end of the statement. It
does not just ban the technology for use in human cloning. It bans it
for any purpose at all.
That means scientists can't use the technology to try to grow cells
to aid men and women dying of leukemia. They can't use it to grow new
eye tissue to help those going blind from certain types of cell
degeneration. They can't use it to grow new pancreas cells to cure
diabetes. They can't use it to regenerate brain tissue to help those
with Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease. They can't use it to
regrow spinal cord tissue to cure those who have been paralyzed in
accidents or by war wounds.
Congress should ban the production of human beings by cloning. We
should not slam on the brakes and have scientific research that has so
much potential to bring help and hope to millions of citizens. As J.
Benjamin Younger, Executive Director of the American Society for
Reproductive Medicine, has said:
``We must work together to ensure that in our effort to make human
cloning illegal, we do not sentence millions of people to needless
suffering because research and progress into their illness cannot
proceed.''
Let us work together. Let us stop this know-nothing and unnecessarily
destructive bill. Together, we can develop legislation that will ban
the cloning of human beings, without banning needed medical research
that can bring the blessings of good health to so many millions of our
fellow citizens.
I bet you could take the legislation that we are talking about here,
and I bet there aren't three Members of this Senate who have read this
legislation. They could not. It was just out yesterday. And most of the
Members have been involved in the various other measures. And we are
being asked to vote on it. No committee, no explanation, absolutely
none that is going to affect very, very important research.
That is not the way that we are going to try and move on into the
next millennium, which is really the millennium of the life sciences.
As science, as chemistry and physics have been in our past history,
life sciences are going to be the key to the next millennium. And we
want to make sure that we are going to meet our responsibilities and
our opportunities in a way that is going to bring credit to the kind of
research and can help make an enormous difference to families all over
this country and really all over the world.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I rise to speak, hopefully in part at
least, to clarify where we are today in terms of a bill which is
enormously important to all of us, to our families, to our children, to
health care, to medical science. It is a bill that has been talked
about in the context of cloning, of human cloning. For the past year--
not on the specifics of the bill--no, but there has been debate in the
past year about whether or not today, in 1998, our society is ready to
clone, or have mass production, of cloned human individuals.
My distinguished colleague from Massachusetts just spoke to the
importance of science, and of protecting scientific discoveries that
will contribute to health care for the next generation. As a scientist,
let me say at the outset that I could not agree more wholeheartedly
with the commitment to not slowing down science in its efforts to
improve health care.
I say this, and I will qualify my statement by saying that we have to
today consider the ethical implications that surround scientific
discovery. We must consider the ethical ramifications that might--in
certain very narrowly defined and specific arenas--tell us to stop,
tell us to slow down before we jump or really leap ahead--into the
unknown. This would have huge moral and ethical implications, not just
in how we deal with each other as individuals, but also in terms of how
we deal with each other globally. This is because we are talking about
affecting the overall genetic pool as well as the psychosocial
implications of how we are defined as individuals.
This does need to be addressed. It is going to take an ongoing
dialogue. We cannot--cannot--answer all the questions here in this
Senate Chamber or in the U.S. Congress. It does take the overall debate
of ``What are the ethical limitations to various aspects of science
today?'' into the public square--where we can meet with scientists, lay
people, bioethicists, people from the business community, theologians,
and ethicists broadly.
We need to face that. And I mention that because this bill has not
been brought to the floor formally. We have the objection. But I think
it is important to understand what this particular bill does. It does
two important things. No. 1, it establishes a commission, a bioethical
commission which is composed of 25 people, a permanent commission that
will look at the bioethical issues of new innovations, new science, new
technology so that we do not have to debate every new breakthrough,
every new technology which is coming with increasing frequency here in
this Chamber.
This commission is to be comprised of 24 individuals. Subcommittees
are set up in terms of ethics, medicine, theology, science and social
sciences. It is broadly representative, not with politicians on it. In
fact, there is an exclusion in there for putting politicians on it, but
it will be appointed in a bicameral way by both sides of the aisle,
broadly representative, with each member serving for 3 years, rotating
members, with ongoing discussion.
There is no forum today for the American people to have the ethical,
theological, scientific, social implications of this new technology
discussed. And that is why this is striking such a strong chord here
today. So some people say, ``Why don't we run away from this? Why don't
we just say,'' based on what I have just implied, ``let's don't address
it now. Let's wait until the future?''
Well, in truth, that is what has happened over the last year. We had
a breakthrough. And it is a breakthrough using a specific technology
which in a sheep--Dolly--really captured the attention of the world
because it demonstrated for the first time that we are on the edge or
on a precipice looking out to a type of science which we have never had
to face before realistically, and that is the replication, the
duplication of the human being.
How have we handled it? It is not like we have not talked about human
cloning. Yet a lot of people will come forward and say we have not
addressed this in this body or as a Nation.
As chairman of a subcommittee which is focused on issues of public
health and safety, I can tell you that the subcommittee actually held
two hearings. The first hearing was entitled ``Examining Scientific
Discoveries In Cloning, Focusing On Challenges For Public Policy.'' And
that particular hearing was in March of last year. We had a number of
people come forward. Again, this is for the benefit of my colleagues so
they can go back and look at the testimony that was presented
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really aimed directly at the Wilmut experiment on Dolly, somatic cell
nuclear transfer and its implications.
That discussion was begun back in March. Harold Varmus, who is
Director of the National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, came and testified. His
testimony is available, talking about this specific technique. Dr. Ian
Wilmut talked before our committee in a public hearing. He is an
embryologist at Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland. I had an
opportunity to visit the institute there and view the type of research
that is going on personally.
Dr. Wilmut's testimony has been presented to this body. I would
encourage my colleagues to go back and look at that public hearing. We
looked principally, at that particular hearing, at the scientific
discoveries. But we wanted to hear from members of the National
Bioethics Advisory Committee, or NBAC. The NBAC committee was
eventually charged, over a 90-day period, to look at this issue of
human cloning and to make recommendations. And we had Dr. Alta Charo,
professor of law, University of Wisconsin, on behalf of the National
Bioethics Advisory Commission testifying.
We also had John Wallwork, director of the transplant unit--
transplantation, my field, has been mentioned on the floor today. And I
hope to have a few comments on that shortly because I think we have to
be very careful not to overstate what the bill, which has not yet even
been discussed, does because it is easy to frighten people and say that
this bill is going to shut down science in a field like
transplantation. It does not do that. This bill is very, very narrowly
defined and only in an arena which results in human cloning.
We held another hearing. And that hearing was entitled, ``Ethics And
Theology: A Continuation Of The National Discussion On Human Cloning.''
I mention this because, as a scientist, as a physician, as someone who
has taken care of patients, and now as a U.S. Senator, I am going to
come back to again and again that we do have the responsibility to look
at the ethical implications of new innovations. That is what we are,
trustees of the American people.
This hearing on ``Ethics And Theology: A Continuation Of The National
Discussion On Human Cloning'' had witnesses, such as James Childress,
again a member of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and also
Edwin Kyle, professor of religious studies at the University of
Virginia. We had Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a member of the National
Bioethics Advisory Commission. We had a number of people testifying
from the theological community as well.
I mentioned both of these hearings and the testimony therein for two
reasons: No. 1, to help my colleagues and the American people know
where they can reference certain material, and, No. 2, to demonstrate
that the dialogue has been ongoing both in Washington, DC, in the U.S.
Senate, in Congress broadly, but also on the public square.
We have heard some call for a private moratorium among the scientific
communities. All of that seems pretty good until we recognize that it
is not working. Just several weeks ago, we had a proposal by an
individual, in essence, to set up an industry. The purpose of that
industry is stated, not in these exact words, but that industry which
is proposed is to clone human individuals.
I'm of course, referring to Dr. Seed. Can it be done? We don't know.
We know that there is a certain technology that worked in an animal
that, if a lot of people focused on that and there were a lot of
experiments, could result in a human being. But the pronouncement that
in spite of the moratorium, in spite of the discussions today, that we
have an individual proposing the creation of an industry that is going
to go charging ahead when we don't know the implications to society, to
this country, to the world, is something that we must react to.
Tough issue. Ethics. We are talking about a procedure which has never
been applied in the human arena. It has only been performed in animals.
A lot of hypothetical examples will come to the floor. This bill
addresses the problem that I just stated. We don't have a national
forum now in which to intelligently, with broad input, discuss these
ethical implications of new technology and new innovations and science.
This bill, once it is allowed to be brought to the floor, very
specifically sets up a mechanism outside of the U.S. Congress but
broadly representative to be able to discuss these issues in a
sophisticated, intelligent, ethical way. We need that mechanism. This
bill creates that mechanism permanently.
The second thing that this bill does, it attempts to--and it is
tough; I can tell you it is tough in terms of doing it just right, but
the bill does it just right--it narrowly focuses on a particular
procedure in the big world of science and research. It takes a very
specific procedure that has never been even used in human cells in
terms of creating embryos and says let's ban that procedure. Let's
allow that procedure, even in animals, in the research arena, in cells.
Let's learn more about that procedure so we will know what those
implications are. But let's ban that narrow procedure when it is used
to create a human being, another person.
Now, the advantage is by banning just that specific technique as it
applies to human cloning, you can still continue experimenting with
Dollys, bovine models, pigs, cows, baboons--animal research. There will
be a lot of people who will say maybe we shouldn't use it there, but
that is not what this bill does. It only bans the somatic cell nuclear
transfer, so-called Dolly technique, as it applies to human cloning. In
vitro research continues, other embryo research continues. This does
not stop embryo research, or research on diabetes or sickle cell or
cancer. It does not do that. It takes a very narrow procedure which is
not commonly even applied to human cloning and says, stop, we will ban
that. All other research continues.
No. 1, we do not ban all somatic cell nuclear transfer, only somatic
cell nuclear transfer which is a specific technique as it applies to
human cloning. Somatic cell nuclear transfer technology can continue in
other fields. It can continue in animals. It can continue in cells. It
is important for people to understand that we only ban this very
specific procedure when used to produce a cloned human embryo.
Second, a little while ago a concern was expressed about the
definition of ``embryo''; the definitions are imprecise. We don't need
to get into a debate about how to define an embryo this morning or
today or on the floor of the U.S. Senate because we already know what
an embryo is. I will just cite two references. The National Institutes
of Health Embryo Panel, which had a formal report in 1994, basically
said, ``In humans, the developing organism from the time of
fertilization.'' That is their definition of embryo.
If we look at the very good, although admittedly I will say
incomplete, report by the NBAC, the National Bioethics
Advisory Committee appointed by the President, which had a very short
time line, their report I should say had recommendations based on the
safety of the procedure. They admitted they did not have the time or
the process to look at all the ethical and social and theological
implications. They held hearings on it, but their conclusions were not
based on those ethical considerations. In their report in 1997, several
months ago, they said the embryo is ``the developing organism from the
time of fertilization.''
The NIH Embryo Panel--I was not in this body at that point in time,
but I have had the opportunity to go back and read their findings and
their report--was very clear in their statement that the embryo does
have some moral significance. The embryo as just defined by these two
definitions does have moral significance today.
There is a huge debate, a debate which I think we should avoid on
this narrow, narrow bill, that can go into abortion, pro-choice and
pro-life, when do you define a life. I don't think we need at this
point in time to get into that discussion. We do need to recognize that
people such as previous panels like the NIH Embryo Panel did give moral
significance to that embryo.
Now, third, in essence, the statement was made the application of
nuclear transfer cloning to humans could provide a potential source of
organs or tissues of a predetermined genetic background. That statement
refers to my own field of transplantation where the
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concept is that rejection of a heart or of a lung or of a kidney is
determined in large part by how different the recipient organism looks
at that transplanted organ, genetically how different are they, which
explains this whole process we called rejection. That is an
inflammatory-like process which says the recipient body will reject
that heart, either more often or totally. The genetically closer you
get, the less that process of rejection occurs, free of other types of
immunosuppression. This whole idea of having lots of copies of an
organ, of a DNA, is one line of research in terms of eliminating
rejection.
References were made to spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's, cancer, with the whole premise being that research will be
shut down in these fields. I want to assure my colleagues it will not.
Again, it is a very specific, narrow procedure as it applies to human
cloning. Animal research will continue, plant research will continue,
other cellular research will continue.
Now, NBAC also in their report in 1997 looked at this issue about
transplantation, since that was brought up on the floor. Let me refer
to their finding, and this is from their Chapter 2, Science and
Applications of Cloning, in their report. ``Because of ethical and
moral concerns raised by the use of embryos for research purposes, it
would be far more desirable to explore the direct use of human cells of
adult origin to produce specialized cells or tissues for
transplantation into patients.''
I think it pretty much speaks for itself based on their ethical and
moral concerns with this type of research that you don't necessarily
have to rely on somatic cell nuclear transfer to produce an embryo as
being the technique in order to create this likeness to prevent
rejection.
No. 2, they say it deals with transplantation and research. ``Given
current uncertainties about the feasibility of this, however, much
research would be needed in animal systems before it would be
scientifically sound and therefore potentially morally acceptable to go
forward with this approach.'' That is, the approach of somatic cell
nuclear transfer. So what NBAC concluded, ``Given these uncertainties.
. .much research would be needed in animal systems. . ..''
Our bill allows that research to continue and then make a decision,
possibly 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 3 years from now, in
terms of what we learn from those animal systems. Our bill says,
``Don't use this technique to clone humans.'' There are a lot of other
strategies. I don't want my colleagues to think that somatic cell
nuclear transfer technique is one of the more important techniques
today. There are all sorts of strategies in terms of the
transplantation arena.
Again, looking at NBAC, they recognize that, ``Another strategy for
cell-based therapies would be to identify methods by which somatic
cells could be de-differentiated and redifferentiated along a
particular path. This would eliminate the need to use cells obtained
from embryos.''
Again, now is not the time to go into these details, but I do want to
show in part the richness of science to demonstrate that this one
particular technique as applied to a human, as applied to human
cloning, is the only thing that is being banned, and all this other
research continues right along.
The issue has come up and will likely come up, should we create
embryos purely for research purposes? Our bill does not. Let me say at
the outset, our bill, as I said, allows embryo research to continue as
it is today under the requirements and the regulations that are out
there today. What our bill does, it looks at a particular technique
with other research and embryos allowed to continue. You can step back
and say, should someone be out creating all these mass-produced human
embryos just to do research on them and then destroy those embryos? It
is an issue which is very likely to come up before this body.
Let me introduce it and just say that our bill does not allow
creation of these embryos using somatic cell nuclear transfer--human
embryos. Again, animal research can continue. The Washington Post
really captured, I think, what this debate will evolve to as we look at
ethics and theology and science, careful not to slow down the progress
of science which we want to encourage in all the fields that have been
mentioned this morning. The Washington Post editorial in 1994 basically
says, ``The creation of human embryos specifically for research that
will destroy them is unconscionable. Viewed from one angle, this issue
can be made to yield endless complexity. What about the suffering of
individuals and infertile couples who might be helped by embryo
research? What about the status of the brand new embryo? But before you
get to these questions, there is a simpler one: Is there a line that
should not be crossed even for scientific or other gain, and if so,
where is it?"
This is not a one-side-of-the-aisle issue. In fact, both sides of the
aisle have put forth bans on human cloning. President Clinton doesn't
believe the Federal Government should be funding embryo-type research.
Basically he has said, ``The subject raises profound ethical and moral
questions as well as issues concerning the appropriate allocation of
Federal funds. I appreciate the work of the committees that have
considered this complex issue and I understand that advances in in
vitro fertilization research and other areas could be derived from
sufficient work. However, I do not believe that Federal funds should be
used to support the creation of human embryos for research purposes.''
Well, let me step back and then I will close. The bill, which we had
hoped would come to the floor today does two things. No. 1, it creates
a bioethics commission, permanent, 24 members, broadly representative
of society today, with the disciplines of ethics, bioethics, theology,
the social sciences, all well represented, a forum that I think is most
appropriate to discuss these very difficult issues of technology that
will be coming through even more rapidly in the future. The answer to
the question is, why don't we just appoint this commission and pass
that part of your bill and not worry? Well, that is what we have sort
of been doing for the last several months--sitting back as the national
dialog continues. Yet, we have a proposal coming from the private
sector at this juncture and that proposal is to go out with the single
objective of cloning human beings. If we as trustees of the American
people want to step back and say, no, that is too hot an issue for us,
that is one approach. My approach is that we go in, we address that
specific problem, that cloning of the human individual with the very
best legislation that we can do, set up a commission so that in the
future both that issue and other issues can be discussed, look at the
science, look at the ethics, look at the philosophical and social
implications of this research. So that is No. 1, a bioethics
commission.
No. 2 is to target the Dr. Seeds of the world--people who don't have
the problem, who don't fully see the ethical potential for harm to
society and to the world and, therefore, have basically publicly stated
what their objective is--to create human beings, and be appealing for
resources to do just that. That is why the American people expect us to
come forward and debate and talk about the implications, make sure that
we do exactly what I have said, which there will be debate on and that
is in a very focused way, target a particular technique which has never
been used to clone a human individual. We just want to prevent that and
allow that science to continue.
The editor of the New England Journal of Medicine basically has said
in the past: ``Knowledge, although important, may be less important to
a decent society than the way it is obtained.''
I hope as we go forward and look at the final disposition of this
bill that we come back to that statement.
I yield the floor.
Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I listened to my colleague's excellent
statement and, of course, since he is the only physician in the Senate,
I think we should all pay strict attention to him.
Let me just say that I am very concerned about debating this bill
today, a bill which falls within the jurisdiction of the Judiciary
Committee, without our having any hearings or other discussion, because
there are a lot of complicated issues involved here.
I want to let the distinguished Senator from Tennessee know that I
support his statements in many respects.
[[Page S439]]
I, too, am opposed to cloning of human beings.
But at the same time, we have to move very carefully in this area so
that we do not preclude a lot of very promising medical technologies
and very valuable biomedical research. It may be that amendments are
need to clarify that.
I maintain an interest in this issue both as Chairman of the
Committee under whose jurisdiction this criminal code amendment would
fall, and as a Senator with a long-standing interest in biomedical
research and ethics.
The questions raised by this legislation are both novel and difficult
and it behooves us to move carefully.
Mr. FRIST. I thank the Senator.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remarks I
am about to give be considered as if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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