[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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