[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 81 (Tuesday, June 18, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5659-S5662]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HUMAN CLONING
Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I understand we are going to be voting
on a very important bill at about 3:45, in just 20, 25 minutes. I
support the bill on terrorism insurance creating a mechanism for us to
create a system in this country for a new kind of insurance,
unfortunately, one for which there has become an apparent need since
September 11, and without which there would be a great hardship for our
banking and financial industries and also for our real estate
developers. Frankly, all businesses--many in Louisiana--are affected
across our Nation.
So I am going to be supportive of this terrorism insurance bill, and
have been supportive of it in the process of trying to bring it to the
floor for a final vote.
But I want to take a few minutes, before we actually vote on that
bill, to speak on an issue that is not directly before the Senate but
is something in which many of us are involved, and for which we are
trying to come up with some solutions. This is the very important issue
involving the subject of cloning. It involves issues related to
potential research in cloning.
We believe this is a subject the Senate and Congress is going to have
to address, and we are attempting to address it. There are various
differences of opinion about how to do that. So I come to the floor to
speak for a minute while we have some time.
First of all, as you know, Madam President, and as many of my
colleagues know, I am working with Senator Brownback and Senator Frist
and others to try to fashion a position on this bill that would
basically create a moratorium of some type--either long term, short
term, or intermediate term--because we believe this is an issue with
serious ethical considerations and one that we, as a Congress, and as
leaders, should have to give very careful consideration to before we
would go forward.
That has been the essence of our approach, just trying to slow things
down so that perhaps we could get enough information to say that we
should not, at any time, under any circumstance, go forward with human
cloning. But the basis of our approach has been a moratorium to give us
more time to get some of this important information out to the public.
This is an issue of great concern to the public. Generally, I think
people want to be supportive of ethical kinds of research, particularly
for the development of cures for diseases. Juvenile diabetes comes to
mind; also cures for cancer and spinal cord injuries.
We want to be very supportive of ethical approaches to research to
provide cures for people who are suffering: children, adults, older
people. I think this Senate has gone on record, in a truly bipartisan
fashion, supporting the increase in funding for the National Institutes
of Health, and it has been a remarkable increase in funding. I, for
one, have been very strongly supportive of that funding and want it to
continue.
But I want to spend a moment talking about some of the problems--
ethical and otherwise--associated with the process of human cloning and
to suggest that the Feinstein-Kennedy approach, which basically would
be asking the Senate, if you will--and why I am not supporting that
approach--and Congress to consider, for the first time, sanctioning or
legalizing human cloning.
I do not think there is enough information for us to make that
decision. Let me give you a couple of reasons.
First of all, some of the proponents of human cloning--people who say
we should go forward with human cloning--try to make a distinction
between human cloning and therapeutic cloning or reproductive cloning
or nuclear transfer.
One of the points I want to make is that human cloning is human
cloning
[[Page S5660]]
is human cloning. It is just a matter of where you stop the process.
The process is exactly the same. Terms have been used to describe it in
a variety of different ways. There may be many terms, but there is just
one process. There may be many names, but there is one process.
As shown on this chart, it is the one process that we are talking
about. There are not two or three or four processes; there is one
process. That process involves an unfertilized egg and a cell from an
adult stem cell. The nucleus is removed and put into this unfertilized
egg, and it becomes basically an embryo.
The Feinstein-Kennedy-Specter approach says that we should basically
authorize this for the first time, say it is legal, authorize it, and
engage in the creation of a human embryo--not a plant, not an animal,
but a human embryo; and then just say at a certain point--whether it is
12 days or 14 days or 16 days--that embryo would then be destroyed,
basically before it is implanted. That is the Feinstein-Kennedy-
Specter approach.
Senator Brownback and I--because of many similar concerns and some
different concerns--and Senator Frist believe the line should be drawn
at this point until we can make a better determination about the risks
and benefits associated with human cloning; that is, to stop the
process before it begins.
One of the reasons we believe this--although the law might try to
draw a line here after the embryo has been created--is because it is
going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to enforce this line
because somewhere, some time, that line is going to be pierced and we
will end up having a cloned embryo implanted. Then the question is,
What do you do then?
The possibilities of passing any kind of so-called compromise that
would legalize and authorize human cloning for the first time in our
Nation's history could get us on to a very slippery slope. That is why
some of us are urging to slow it down, have more study, and have a
short-term moratorium, which even President Clinton, in his term as
President, said--of course, when Dolly, the sheep, was created--that is
exactly what we should do until we get more information about the
benefits and risks associated with cloning.
So it is not only President Bush who is urging us to slow down, but
both Democrat and Republican administrations. And you can understand
why. It puts us on a very slippery slope if we--and I hope we do not;
and I am going to fight to make sure we do not--start with the premise
that we can legalize human cloning, authorize it, potentially even fund
it with Government funding; that we at least legalize it so that
millions of private dollars flow into the research on human cloning,
harvesting, creating these millions of embryos in labs all around the
country and supporting their development in labs all around the world--
harvesting them and destroying them, harvesting them and destroying
them, harvesting them and destroying them.
Then, at some point, because these are not Government-run labs, these
are private sector labs, these are people who will be working--to give
everybody the benefit of the doubt, let's say most people are working
on some potential cures for diseases, although they may be far in the
distance, but it is not inconceivable, and it is common sense to
believe that at some point somebody--a scientist, a patient, a woman, a
couple--is going to push the envelope, implant what is a legal clone,
and then look at us or go call a press conference and say: Now what? It
is a clone that has been created because we have legalized it. It is a
clone. We will have legalized it, if we pass a bill that does legalize
it. And then the question is, What are you going to do about it?
Once a clone is implanted, what do we do if it is delivered or born
healthy? That is one issue. What if it is born grossly mutilated, which
is probably, based on the Dolly, the sheep, experiment and research,
going to happen because 275 embryo trials were used to create Dolly,
the sheep. All of them ended in death or destruction to the creature,
the clone being created, and then finally a clone was successfully
delivered.
For us to think that this is the time--there has been only one
hearing in a Senate committee on this subject, at least in recent
years; perhaps there were some many years ago, but I don't think so--to
move forward with a bill that would authorize human cloning is at best
premature and, frankly, in my opinion, at this particular point, wholly
unproven technology with tremendous ethical questions and great
difficulty in trying to police what would basically be an authorized
legal process of creating for the first time in America human clones.
That is as simple as I can state it. There is not a difference
between therapeutic cloning or nuclear transfer. There are many names
for it, but it is one process. It is the same process. The issue is,
should we start that process and, if so, where should we stop it.
Another question is, Could you really stop it once it is started?
The other reason I am suggesting a pause, a moratorium of some
nature, maybe 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, enough time for us to develop
a blue ribbon panel of scientists, not with preordained notions but
truly a group of scientists who can help us as a nation figure out what
would be, if any, benefits of human cloning, we have to realize that
right now in the body of the law we are not even engaging in the full
range of stem cell research that holds tremendous potential for the
discovery of cures for many of these diseases.
We have very limited research on stem cells going on in this country,
either adult or embryonic stem cells. Why? Because we have not even
come to a consensus on that. Human cloning takes us many steps past
that issue. We can work on nonclones. We can work on noncloned embryos
and still get a tremendous amount of benefit without the terrible
ethical consideration this raises.
The third issue is, if you think about it, even in a macro sense,
even those of us who are not trained as doctors or scientists could
understand that one issue that might compel a person, a family, a
grieving parent over a fatally ill child or a spouse over another
fatally ill spouse would be if the research or the benefits could not
be derived from regular embryos or from stem cells on nonclones, and
the only way to cure this person's particular disease would be to get
something harvested from a clone. That is the rejection issue.
If everything else has been exhausted, none of the other methods or
procedures is working in other areas, then perhaps we would have to get
tissue or research or some piece of a cell from a cloned embryo. We are
so far from making that determination. I have not read one scientific
study, one legitimate group of scientists anywhere, not any prize
winners, not any research has been done or even theorized that that
would be the only way, the rejection issue, to overcome the objections
to cloning.
Those of us who are urging a moratorium are not against research. We
are strongly--many of us--supportive of stem cell research. But to rush
headlong into a process that will for the first time legalize human
cloning because there might be a slight benefit, which is totally
unproven, to get over a rejection issue by using a human clone is a
real stretch, and it is very premature.
What I am hoping is that we can continue this debate for Members to
come to the floor and speak about some of these issues at the
appropriate time. We don't want to hold up other important bills. But
this is a very important bill for our Nation. It will set a pace, a
direction for our research.
I am hoping in the next several days and weeks we can come up with a
compromise on this issue that will not authorize the creation of clones
but that will allow us some more time to study the benefits of human
cloning, if there are any, if it can be proven, and if those benefits
outweigh the grave risk, the tremendous risk associated with legalizing
human cloning, and then trying to stop the implantation of the clones.
I think it puts our society at a great risk, at a great disadvantage,
to try to regulate something we have never tried to regulate before.
The Feinstein-Kennedy approach is not a ban on human cloning; it is
an exception to the ban on human cloning. It would authorize and
legalize human cloning for the first time in our Nation's history. We
have to be very careful before we open what could be a Pandora's box or
at least get us on a slippery slope towards a system where we
[[Page S5661]]
have actually legalized and authorized the development of human clones.
If this study comes out and the research suggests the only way to
find cures for this disease for this particular individual might be to
explore the benefits or to explore the opportunities in a clone, maybe
some ethical considerations would be outweighed if a life could be
saved or if this is the only way to save a life. But we are not
anywhere near that.
I urge my colleagues to take a very close look at what Senator
Brownback and Senator Frist and I will suggest as a compromise to get
us through these next years, using our good values and our common sense
and our ethics, always promoting good research and good science, but
not getting ourselves in a direction where we cannot pull back and
causing our population to have to deal with the birth of a first human
clone.
To then have to ask ourselves, why didn't we do something more to
stop this and what do we do now that we have the first clone alive and
in the world--we have to think about it.
I hope we can come to terms with this issue. That is why I wanted to
spend some time speaking about it.
It is a very exciting time in science. We are exploring and inventing
and discovering things people even 25 or 30 or 40 years ago thought
could never possibly be. There are some wonderful things about science
and discovery, but there are limits that sometimes need to be placed.
We have now for the first time in human history come to terms with the
fact that we can create not a plant clone, not an animal clone, but the
potential to create a human clone.
The question before the Congress is, Should we start that process? I
am saying as simply as I can, before we start, we had better be sure of
what we are going to do, when basically the line we draw is breached,
as surely as it will be one day, and make sure we can draw a line and
set a framework in place that minimizes the chances of a human clone
being born in our lifetime or forever.
I think it is definitely worth debating and worth considering. I
yield back the remainder of my time. I see my colleague from the great
State of Connecticut is with us.
Before I yield the floor, I ask unanimous consent to have two
articles by Charles Krauthammer printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, May 10, 2002]
Research Cloning? No.
(By Charles Krauthammer)
Proponents of research cloning would love to turn the
cloning debate into a Scopes monkey trial, a struggle between
religion and science. It is not.
Many do oppose research cloning because of deeply held
beliefs that destroying a human embryo at any stage violates
the sanctity of human life. I respect that view, but I do not
share it. I have no theology. I do not believe that
personhood begins at conception. I support stem cell
research. But I oppose research cloning.
It does no good to change the nomenclature. The Harry and
Louise ad asks, ``Is it cloning?'' and answers, ``No, it uses
an unfertilized egg and a skin cell.''
But fusing (the nucleus of) a ``somatic'' cell (such as
skin) with an enucleated egg cell is precisely how you clone.
That is how Dolly the sheep was created (with the cell taken
not from the skin but from the udder). And that is how pig,
goat, cow, mouse, cat and rabbit clones are created.
The scientists pushing this research go Harry and Louise
one better. They want to substitute the beautifully sterile,
high-tech sounding term SCNT--``somatic cell nuclear
transfer''--for cloning. Indeed, the nucleus of a somatic
cell is transferred into an egg cell to produce a clone. But
to say that is not cloning is like saying: ``No, that is not
sex. It is just penile vaginal intromission.'' Describing the
technique does not change the nature of the enterprise.
Cloning it is. And it is research cloning rather than
reproductive cloning because the intention is not to produce
a cloned child but to grow the embryo long enough to
dismember it for its useful scientific parts.
And that is where the secularists have their objection.
What makes research cloning different from stem cell
research--what pushes us over a moral frontier--is that for
the first time it sanctions the creation of a human embryo
for the sole purpose of using it for its parts. Indeed, it
will sanction the creation of an entire industry of embryo
manufacture whose explicit purpose is not creation of
children but dismemberment for research.
It is the ultimate commodification of the human embryo. And
it is a bridge too far. Reducing the human embryo to nothing
more than a manufactured thing sets a fearsome desensitizing
precedent that jeopardizes all the other ethical barriers we
have constructed around embryonic research.
This is not just my view. This was the view just months ago
of those who, like me, supported federally funded stem cell
research.
The clinching argument then was this: Look, we are simply
trying to bring some good from embryos that would otherwise
be discarded in IVF clinics. This is no slippery slope. We
are going to put all kinds of safeguards around stem cell
research. We are not about to start creating human embryos
for such research. No way.
Thus when Senators Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter were
pushing legislation promoting stem cell research in 2000,
they stipulated that ``the stem cells used by scientists can
only be derived from spare embryos that would otherwise be
discarded by in vitro fertilization clinics.'' Lest there be
any ambiguity, they added: ``Under our legislation, strict
federal guidelines would ensure [that] no human embryos will
be created for research purposes.''
Yet two years later, Harkin and Specter are two of the most
enthusiastic Senate proponents of creating cloned human
embryos for research purposes.
In testimony less than 10 months ago, Senator Orrin Hatch
found ``extremely troubling'' the just-reported work of the
Jones Institute, ``which is creating embryos in order to
conduct stem cell research.''
The stem cell legislation Hatch was then supporting--with
its ``federal funding with strict research guidelines,'' he
assured us--was needed precisely to prevent such ``extremely
troubling'' procedures.
That was then. Hatch has just come out for research cloning
whose entire purpose is ``creating embryos in order to
conduct stem cell research.''
Yesterday it was yes to stem cells with solemn assurances
that there would be no embryo manufacture. Today we are told:
Forget what we said about embryo manufacture; we now solemnly
pledge that we will experiment on only the tiniest cloned
embryo, and never grow it--and use it--beyond that early
``blastocyst'' stage.
What confidence can one possibly have in these new
assurances? This is not a slide down the slippery slope. This
is downhill skiing. And the way to stop it is to draw the
line right now at the embryo manufacture that is cloning--not
just because that line is right, but because the very notion
of drawing lines is at stake.
____
[From the Washington Post, July 27, 2001]
A Nightmare of a Bill
(By Charles Krauthammer)
Hadn't we all agreed--we supporters of stem cell research--
that it was morally okay to destroy a tiny human embryo for
its possibility curative stem cells because these embryos
from fertility clinics were going to be discarded anyway?
Hadn't we also agreed that human embryos should not be
created solely for the purpose of being dismembered and then
destroyed for the benefit of others?
Indeed, when Senator Bill Frist made that brilliant
presentation on the floor of the Senate supporting stem cell
research, he included among his conditions a total ban on
creating human embryos just to be stem cell farms. Why, then,
are so many stem cell supporters in Congress lining up behind
a supposedly ``anti-cloning bill'' that would, in fact,
legalize the creation of cloned human embryos solely for
purposes of research and destruction?
Sound surreal? It is.
There are two bills in Congress regarding cloning. The
Weldon bill bans the creation of cloned human embryos for any
purpose, whether for growing them into cloned human children
or for using them for research or for their parts and then
destroying them.
The competing Greenwood ``Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001''
prohibits only the creation of a cloned child. It protects
and indeed codifies the creation of cloned human embryos for
industrial and research purposes.
Under Greenwood, points out the distinguished bioethicist
Leon Kass, ``embryo production is explicitly licensed and
treated like drug manufacture.'' It becomes an industry,
complete with industrial secrecy protections. Greenwood, he
says correctly, should really be called the ``Human Embryo
Cloning Registration and Industry Facilitation and Protection
Act of 2001.''
Greenwood is a nightmare and an abomination. First of all,
once the industry of cloning human embryos has begun and
thousands are being created, grown, bought and sold, who is
going to prevent them from being implanted in a woman and
developed into a cloned child?
Even more perversely, when that inevitably occurs, what is
the federal government going to do: Force that woman to abort
the clone?
Greenwood sanctions licenses and protects the launching of
the most ghoulish and dangerous enterprise in modern
scientific history: the creation of nascent cloned human life
for the sole purpose of its exploitation and destruction.
What does one say to stem cell opponents? They warned about
the slippery slope. They said: Once you start using discarded
embryos, the next step is creating embryos for their parts.
Frist and I and others have argued: No, we can draw the line.
Why should anyone believe us? Even before the President has
decided on federal support
[[Page S5662]]
for stem cell research, we find stem cell supporters and
their biotech industry allies trying to pass a bill that
would cross the line--not in some slippery-slope future, but
right now.
Apologists for Greenwood will say: Science will march on
anyway. Human cloning will be performed. Might as well give
in and just regulate it, because a full ban will fail in any
event.
Wrong. Very wrong. Why? Simple: You're a brilliant young
scientist graduating from medical school. You have a glowing
future in biotechnology, where peer recognition,
publications, honors, financial rewards, maybe even a Nobel
Prize await you. Where are you going to spend your life?
Working on an outlawed procedure? If cloning is outlawed,
procedure? If cloning is outlawed, will you devote yourself
to research that cannot see the light of day, that will leave
you ostracized and working in shadow, that will render you
liable to arrest, prosecution and disgrace?
True, some will make that choice. Every generation has its
Kevorkian. But they will be very small in number. And like
Kevorkian, they will not be very bright.
The movies have it wrong. The mad scientists is no genius.
Dr. Frankensteins invariably produce lousy science. What is
Kevorkian's great contribution to science? A suicide machine
that your average Hitler Youth could have turned out as a
summer camp project.
Of course you cannot stop cloning completely. But make it
illegal and you will have robbed it of its most important
resource: great young minds. If we act now by passing Weldon,
we can retard this monstrosity by decades. Enough time to
regain our moral equilibrium--and the recognition that the
human embryo, cloned or not, is not to be created for the
sole purpose of being poked and prodded, strip-mined for
parts and then destroyed.
If Weldon is stopped, the game is up. If Congress cannot
pass the Weldon ban on cloning, then stem cell research
itself must not be supported either--because then all the
vaunted promises about not permitting the creation of human
embryos solely for their exploitation and destruction will
have been shown in advance to be a fraud.
____________________