[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.

                          ____________________