[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 83 (Thursday, June 20, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H3760-H3766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             HUMAN CLONING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kennedy of Minnesota). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Pence) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I and several of my colleagues, including the 
distinguished physician and Congressman from Florida by the name of 
David Weldon, wanted to rise in this Chamber to discuss an issue that, 
while it has fallen to some extent, to use a colloquialism, below the 
radar screen here in our Nation's Capital, it is without a doubt the 
most significant moral question that the institution of the Congress 
will contend with in this session of Congress and perhaps, Mr. Speaker, 
for many sessions of Congress to come.
  As we debate the restructuring of agencies of the Federal Government, 
the new Department of Homeland Security, as we debate in memorable 
terms, as my colleagues just did, the extension of benefits under 
Medicare, all of these issues pale in comparison to the potential 
cultural impact and the impact on our system of legal ethics that the 
legalization of human cloning would represent to our society and even 
to our civilization.
  Yet even though this body has acted and awaits action in the balance 
of the Congress, I believe it is incumbent upon the Members of this 
institution who cherish the dignity of human life to rise and to remind 
our colleagues, as I will do so in the moments ahead, and any of those 
that are looking in about the profound moral questions that we wrestle 
with when we argue in favor of a ban of human cloning.
  It is my hope that as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) joins 
us later, he will speak to the medical questions and myths that 
surround the promise of embryonic stem cell research. The gentleman 
from Florida will no doubt point out, as many of us did during the 
debates, that every single breakthrough in the area of stem cell 
research has taken place using adult stem cells, Mr. Speaker. Not a 
single breakthrough in medical science has ever occurred using 
embryonic stem cell research. Yet we are being sold a bill of goods by 
a technical medical industry that would have us move the line of 
thousands of years of medical ethics to permit what they, in almost 
Orwellian terms, refer to as therapeutic cloning, the cloning of human 
beings, of nascent human life, for the express purpose of testing that 
tissue.
  I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to say we must prevent human life from 
becoming a wholesale commodity that is created and consumed. Let me say 
again, my theme today, my purpose for rising in this Chamber with the 
colleagues that will join me, is very simple. We must prevent in this 
Congress, before the close of this year, this session of Congress, we 
must prevent, by law, human life from becoming a commodity that is 
created and consumed in a marketplace of science.
  I say that knowing that there will be those listening in in offices 
here on Capitol Hill, there will be those listening in around the 
United States, who think that this is something of a strange science 
fiction assertion. But let me suggest to you as a family man, as the 
father of three small children, a

[[Page H3761]]

husband of 17 years, let me say that it is precisely about that that I 
believe this debate over human cloning emanates.

                              {time}  1700

  I come to the floor this afternoon to speak about really the failure 
of the Congress to adopt a ban on human cloning. It is, Mr. Speaker, 
without a doubt, human cloning, perhaps the most anticipated and even 
feared development in the history of science. The promise that opening 
up this Pandora's box seems to hold for some pales in comparison to the 
backdrop of that great Biblical adage that reads in the book of Isaiah 
that, I am God, and there is no other. Human cloning is about the 
creation of human life for utilitarian ends. It is anticipated, and it 
is rightly feared.
  For decades, truthfully, humans have been probing the darkest regions 
of their imagination to craft stories in science fiction where the 
duplication of human life is acceptable, but we always run in, it 
seems, to the old prophet, and he says, I am God, and there is no 
other.
  Over the last several years, advances in the understanding of 
cellular biology have made it apparent that this brave new world 
described by science fiction writers was not actually that far off. We 
have since learned that cloning is, in fact, a possibility and could 
be, or may, Mr. Speaker, I say with hesitation, may already be, a 
reality.
  Somewhere in the world today, somewhere in America today, while 
Congress fails to act on a ban of human cloning, amoral scientists may 
be in the process of duplicating human life and thereby, perhaps, 
laying the foundation for duplicating a human being, created always, up 
until that point, Mr. Speaker, in the image of God, the first human 
being in history created in the image of another human being.
  Several of my colleagues tonight and I want to examine precisely 
these questions, these large moral and ethical questions, that seem to 
get left in the dust behind the promise of somatic cell nuclear 
transfer and embryonic stem cell research.
  We hear about the promise. We see people rising out of wheelchairs, 
we see quadriplegics able to walk, and we want to reach for that, Mr. 
Speaker, but we, to do so, must reach across a line that mankind has 
never and should never cross.
  Cloning involves the making of an exact genetic copy of a human being 
through a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer. In the process, 
the DNA is removed from the cell of a human, and it is transferred to 
an egg cell. The result is the formation of a human embryo, the 
beginning of human life. Theoretically, if this embryo were implanted 
in a womb, it would have the ability to follow the normal stages of 
development until a human being is born.
  I say to you today that while most of us recognize the problems of 
using cloning for procreation and are prepared to outlaw the practice 
of it, Mr. Speaker, there are some who would have us talk about somatic 
cell nuclear transfer as though what was created was not human life, 
and there is great confusion on this point.
  I say, not in an effort to crowd the upcoming remarks of the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), but I say, Mr. Speaker, with deep 
humility, that there are many in this debate who want to refer in 
cavalier ways to that embryonic tissue and say it is something other 
than human life. Mr. Speaker, if it is not nascent human life, what is 
it?
  I was provoked to come to the floor of this Congress by the words of 
some of the advocates of so-called therapeutic cloning, who are now 
about the business of sharing a new slogan with America, and it is a 
slogan that in effect says a single cell can feel no pain. A single 
cell can feel no pain, as though the moral and ethical line would not 
be crossed in the absence of pain. It is an absurd anti-intellectual 
and antihistorical assertion, and I call it as such, regardless of who 
may use it.
  Many in the scientific community, Mr. Speaker, believe that nascent 
embryonic life should be used for medical research through this 
procedure known as therapeutic cloning. They have come up with this 
innocuous term. It is very misleading. In this procedure the cloned 
embryo is created solely for the use of its parts. The human is given 
life, only to be destroyed a few days later for specialized stem cells.
  I go back to the thesis of my remarks today. We must prevent human 
life from becoming a wholesale commodity that is created and consumed 
and destroyed, which is precisely what therapeutic cloning is, Mr. 
Speaker. It is the creation of embryonic human life to be destroyed for 
its parts.
  Despite the fact that research on embryonic stem cells has yet to 
produce any treatment for any medical condition, as I said before, 
researchers are calling the cloning and harvesting of embryonic stem 
cells ``therapeutic.'' Humanity is contemplating the creation of a 
subclass of human life that is created and killed for the benefit of 
other humans.
  Mr. Speaker, I come from south of Highway 40 in Indiana. I am not the 
brightest bulb in the box. But, for crying out loud, how can we suggest 
that this is anything other than the creation of a form of human life 
that we have never recognized before, the creation of a class of human 
life that exists to benefit other humans who are farther along in their 
physiological development?

  I often say to my children, it is not sufficient to think once about 
hard issues, you have to think twice. Mr. Speaker, this is one of those 
issues where you have to think twice, and the moral and ethical issues 
raised even by experimental and so-called therapeutic cloning become 
obvious.
  I fear we are turning life literally into a wholesale commodity to be 
created and destroyed. Make no mistake, if we proceed down this course, 
millions of human embryos, nascent human life, will be created and then 
destroyed, and even then we may not attain the scientific achievements 
that have been promised to us.
  Now, some may be willing to say that, well, there will not be that 
much destruction of nascent human life, but, Mr. Speaker, less than 3 
percent of cloned embryos in animal studies are successfully implanted 
to go to term. Birth defects occur in legion numbers. Literally, Dolly 
the Sheep was the product of thousands of failed aberrations in the 
attempt to clone a single mammal.
  And to think of this kind of experimentation, as we go not just from 
the therapeutic cloning, the cellular level, stem cell research, but we 
know in our hearts there will be those media-hound scientists who will 
want to show up with the first cloned baby. Think of the children who 
will go before the first baby. Think of the birth defects. Think of the 
spontaneous abortions. If Dolly the Sheep is to be the instructor, if 
the experience of cloning experimentation on mammals teaches us 
anything, it teaches us that there will be a nightmare of destruction 
leading to that one fully cloned human being.
  I do not know about the rest of my colleagues, but it is my firm 
conviction that scientific advancement is not worth the price of human 
embryo factories. It is also not worth the price of one innocent unborn 
human life that attempts to make it to term, but, because the 
scientific technology is not sufficiently advanced, it dies in utero or 
after delivery.
  Human cloning must be stopped in every form. Unfortunately, those who 
support cloning are attempting, I would argue, in some cases to twist 
the facts to fit their agenda. Recent statements by supporters of 
cloning suggest that cloning actually is not cloning, that it is 
medical research on a cluster of cells stripped of their humanity. Mr. 
Speaker, I fear that this utilitarian logic has caused us to overlook 
deep ethical and moral implications involved in cloning.
  But also I would say humbly, as I prepare to recognize my colleague 
and friend from Florida, that not only are they wrong on the ethics and 
the morality, but, Mr. Speaker, I say with real humility, they are 
wrong on the science. They are wrong on the medicine. They are wrong on 
the potential advances that this research affords.
  As this Congress moves forward in this debate, it is absolutely 
essential that we do not let the weird science and the unsubstantiated 
promises dominate this debate, but that we look with the cold eye of 
science as we evaluate the promise here.

[[Page H3762]]

  I would add, Mr. Speaker, it would be sufficient for this 
Congressman, even if the science held all the promise in the world, it 
would be sufficient for me to oppose human cloning, even cellular human 
cloning and research, on moral and ethical grounds. And yet, inasmuch 
as it is helpful to our argument, I have called upon my colleague and 
friend, the author of the House bill of banning human cloning, to join 
me in this Special Order today to talk about the science.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), before he came to this 
institution, was an established physician with a background in 
microbiology. He is a man who speaks with unique authority on these 
issues in this institution. It was the reason why we were able to 
develop legislation here and develop strong bipartisan support behind a 
human cloning ban. Part of the argument that the gentleman from Florida 
made, and I trust will make again today, is that while certainly 
morality and medical ethics for thousands of years are on the side of 
banning human cloning in all its forms, for all of its purposes, 
happily, the science is on our side as well.
  With that, I yield to the author of the ban on human cloning in the 
House, the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding. I want to thank him for the support and assistance provided 
me and all of the others involved in passing the ban on human cloning 
out of the House of Representatives. The gentleman's involvement was 
extremely helpful. I also want to thank the gentleman for making 
arrangements for this Special Order.
  We continue to await action from the other body on this issue. As we 
all know, the bill to ban human cloning, which I had authored along 
with my colleague the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), a Democrat, 
passed the House of Representatives now almost a year ago. It was July 
of 2001 that it passed. I just want to point out that that bill passed 
the House of Representatives by a 100-vote margin, I think it was 63 
Democrats voting for it, and about 20 Republicans voting against it, so 
this is clearly not a Republican versus Democrat issue. It passed 
overwhelmingly, with a very, very clear bipartisan vote.
  I just want to underscore that the bill as it passed the House does 
not ban stem cell research. There are a lot of people that confuse 
these issues. I will admit they are complicated.

                              {time}  1715

  I have a background in medicine and science, and it is easy for me to 
follow these things; but for lay people, it is very, very hard to sort 
out when are we talking about stem cell research and when we are 
talking about human cloning.
  Also, the bill does not ban cloning tissues; it does not ban animal 
cloning. It specifically bans human cloning. And for the sake of 
discussion tonight, I do want to review exactly what that is. It is 
what is called asexual reproduction. I have a chart here to my left. 
The top row here shows the normal fertilization where the sperm unites 
with the egg, it forms a single cell, a fertilized egg, or single cell 
embryo; and this next picture here shows a 3-day-old embryo and then a 
5- to 7-day-old embryo.
  In human beings, humans have 46 chromosomes, 23 are resident in the 
sperm, 23 are resident in the nucleus of the egg. They come together, 
23 plus 23 equals 46, creating a new human being. This is how we all 
begin our path through eternity here on Earth and beyond, as a uniting 
of 23 chromosomes from the sperm and the egg.
  In cloning, what is done is we take the egg and we either inactivate 
the nucleus with 23 chromosomes in it or, as shown in this particular 
diagram, we have removed it, so we create an egg that has no nucleus in 
it, no genetic material, no chromosomes. Then we take a donor cell, and 
in this diagram it is depicted like the skin cell, and we take the 
nucleus out of it. We call these somatic cells, and that is where the 
term ``somatic cell nuclear transfer'' comes from. The cells in our 
body, the skin cells, the cells in our heart, in our muscles, we call 
them somatic cells. Somatic means body.
  The process involves taking the nucleus out of that and putting the 
nucleus into the egg. When that is done, that is called somatic cell 
nuclear transfer. If the process works, 3 days later we have an embryo 
that is essentially indistinguishable from this embryo here, except 
this embryo here is a unique individual created by the combination of 
the chromosomes here. This embryo is actually the identical twin of the 
person who donated this cell. So if I were to donate my cell and 
somebody were to go through this procedure, this embryo developing 
would be my twin brother, my identical twin brother. That is why we 
call it cloning.
  This is the exact procedure that was used to create Dolly the sheep. 
What they did in that particular instance is they took an egg from one 
sheep, they deactivated the nucleus, they took an udder cell, which is 
essentially a breast duct cell, and extracted the nucleus from that, 
and they created a new sheep which was a clone of this one. And then 
once it grows in culture, we have to put it inside the womb of a 
surrogate mother and, ultimately, Dolly the sheep was to be produced.
  The reason I am going through all of this in exquisite detail is some 
people are trying to say this is not really cloning, that you are not 
really creating a human if you do this; and in humans they like to call 
it things like ``nuclear transfer.'' When we start playing language 
games like that, we are essentially trying to tell us all that Dolly is 
not a sheep. I mean if we do this with a person, we will get a person. 
It will start out like we all do as a baby and then grow up to become 
an adolescent.
  Now, what are some of the problems with this? Well, the number of 
problems are huge. They are absolutely gigantic. It took 270 tries to 
create Dolly the sheep. Many lambs were born with very, very severe 
birth defects. Many of the offspring amongst the five species that have 
been cloned so far emerged very, very large, very large placentas and 
umbilical chords. A woman might look 9 months pregnant when she is only 
4\1/2\ months along. Also, very defective fetuses. Indeed, there was 
one research study that showed that all offspring from the procedure of 
cloning so far have genetic abnormalities. So this is human 
experimentation, and it is human experimentation of the absolute worst 
kind.
  Now, a lot of people feel that the solution to all of this is to just 
ban reproductive cloning, make it illegal to produce a baby, but allow 
researchers in the lab to produce these embryos unrestricted for 
research purposes. They even hold out that somehow this could be used 
in clinical medicine someday.
  I am a physician. I take care of patients with Alzheimer's disease, 
diabetes. I still see patients once a month. My father had diabetes, 
died of complications of diabetes. This is very, very fanciful science, 
to make claims that we must allow this research to proceed because it 
is going to lead to all of these ``cures.'' In my opinion, that is 
patently absurd.
  Indeed, what they really are talking about is extracting some of 
these cells out of these so-called cloned embryos and doing what they 
call therapeutic cloning where they claim they can grow replacement 
tissues for people that have diseases.
  One of the things that I have been arguing for, for well over a year 
now is that the arena of adult stem cells actually shows much more 
promise. Embryonic stem cells, there have been some problems in 
research studies where they tend to grow too much and actually can 
become tumor-like in their growth. We have been using adult stem cells 
in clinical research now for years, actually 20 years. There are some 
50 clinical trials using adult stem cells. Indeed, just today, there 
was an article published in Nature, the most recent issue of Nature, 
and I think this came out of the University of Minnesota, that showed 
that they could get adult stem cells to become any tissue type, and 
they could get them to reproduce over and over and over again, 
essentially validating what people like myself have been saying for 
quite some time. The study is entitled ``Pluripotency of Mesenchymal, 
Stem Cells Derived From Adult Marrow.''

  What they did in the study is they clearly showed that adult stem 
cells can reproduce and reproduce and reproduce as embryonic stem cells 
can, and that they can become any tissue type, essentially laying the 
debate to rest

[[Page H3763]]

that one has to have embryonic stem cells.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I wondered if it 
might be a good opportunity to take just 2 minutes to recognize the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), because I am very interested, 
Mr. Speaker, in eliciting more information about the promise of adult 
stem cell research from the gentleman from Florida, which seems to me 
is the most deafening, in addition to the moral and ethical arguments 
against somatic cell transfer, therapeutic cloning for research, the 
most deafening argument beyond the morality is the promise of adult 
stem cell research.
  So with that, with the gentleman's permission, I will yield to the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), the leader of the Values 
Action Team in the United States House of Representatives for the 
majority. He is without a doubt the strongest pro-family voice in the 
United States Congress.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership on 
this issue and for setting up this Special Order on their very timely 
issue.
  A syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer, says that cloning is ``a 
nightmare and an abomination.'' I would concur with that. Cloning is 
like something from a bad science fiction movie. The only difference is 
that now, some scientists are actually on the verge of doing it. Now, 
these scientists try to deflect our criticism by claiming that they 
have no intention of cloning a person. They say they just want to clone 
human embryos so that they can take their stem cells, and they promise 
that they will kill the embryos before they grow to adulthood. So some 
have characterized them as cloning to kill.
  Well, no one has said it better than The Washington Post. The Post 
said a few years ago: ``The creation of human embryos specifically for 
research that will destroy them is unconscionable.'' There is no 
difference between what they want to call ``research cloning'' and what 
they want to call ``reproductive cloning.'' The only difference is when 
they kill the human life that they have created.
  Mr. Speaker, these unscrupulous scientists claim that the research 
they want to do could cure diseases one day. But the truth is, there is 
no evidence for that. Stem cells, as has been noted by the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Weldon), taken from adults have shown much more 
promise in research than stem cells taken from embryos. Besides, these 
same people insisted a few years ago that we had to let them do fetal 
tissue research, despite people's moral objections to taking tissue of 
aborted fetuses for research, because they said they might cure 
diseases.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, where are those cures?
  These people are like the boy who cried wolf. There is no reason we 
should believe them. Cloning human beings is wrong, simply wrong. Even 
if they could cure diseases through cloning, it would still be wrong. 
The vast majority of the American people want it banned, the House of 
Representatives has voted to ban it, the President of the United States 
wants to ban it, and we are all just waiting for the other body to do 
the right thing. I just hope we do not have to wait too long.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope all of my colleagues will remember, if we do 
nothing, if the other body never acts and if there is no bill to send 
to the President, cloning, any kind of cloning, will be completely 
legal, and there be nothing we can do to stop it.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his profound moral 
clarity and for his continued leadership on issues related to the 
sanctity of human life.
  With that I would like to yield back to the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Weldon). Specifically, if I may ask my colleague, as I said 
earlier in this hour that we have, it would be sufficient for me if we 
simply were arguing on the history and morality of Western 
civilization. The truth that rings out of our best traditions that he 
is God, and we are not, would be sufficient for me. But, Mr. Speaker, 
as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) began to address, and I 
would ask him to elaborate on, the promise of adult stem cell research 
in itself argues against the expansion of or extension of science into 
the so-called embryonic or therapeutic cloning research. I would be 
grateful to have the gentleman elaborate on that.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding. Adult stem cells have been used in over 45 human clinical 
trials to treat human beings. Embryo stem cells have never been used 
successfully in any human clinical trial.

                              {time}  1730

  Indeed, embryo stem cells have not really been used successfully in 
any animal clinical trial up until recently. There was a study recently 
published, and I need to give the advocates for embryo stem cell 
research at least an honest appraisal, there was recently a research 
article in an animal model of Parkinson's disease, I believe, in rats, 
where they showed improvement in response to embryo stem cells in that 
particular case.
  But hold that up against the tremendous amount of research that has 
been done with adult stem cells, and hold that up against this recent 
article that was just published in Nature showing the pluripotency of 
mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow, suggesting none of 
the ethical and moral issues associated with embryo stem cells. 
Certainly cloning needs to be brought into play.
  I will just point out, the advocates for embryo stem cell research 
may start quoting this recent article reported in Nature, using embryo 
stem cells to treat a rat model of Parkinson's disease as a reason they 
need to rush ahead with all of this. As I understand it, and I do not 
have the citation, there has been published, in abstract form at least, 
a case where an adult brain stem cell was used successfully to treat 
Parkinson's disease in a human being.
  The point I am raising here is the adult stem cell research is way 
ahead of the embryo stem cell research. The embryo stem cell research 
is quite hypothetical. It is even more hypothetical to say that we have 
to do cloning, that cloning is somehow necessary.
  What I honestly think is going on here, if the gentleman will 
continue to yield, is I think the research community and a lot of 
people in the scientific and biotechnology community know that 
therapeutic cloning is never likely to happen. What they really want to 
do, and this is speculation on my part, is they want to create cloned 
models of disease; in other words, taking somebody with a disease and 
making a clone of them, and then allow that clone to be used and 
manipulated in the lab so they can do research on that clone.
  Indeed, I think the reason the biotechnology industry is so 
interested in this is they see this as an opportunity to patent that, 
and, in effect, one would be patenting a human being, and then exploit 
that for monetary gain; basically be able to sell these clones as 
models of disease so people could try to do genetic manipulations on 
them, or pharmacologic manipulations on them in the lab.
  I just want to point out that this is the slippery slope. It is a 
big-time slippery slope. They talk about extracting stem cells from 
these things here, these embryos, and then growing them into the 
tissues that are needed. But there is excellent research that has been 
done in creating artificial wombs, and they have a very, very nice 
artificial womb that you can grow an embryo in up to 30 days, if I am 
not mistaken. So why would we not just take the fertilized egg, it 
would be much cheaper and quicker, put it in the artificial womb, grow 
it into the fetal stage, and then extract the tissue that is needed?
  We may say, well, they would never do that; that sounds so terrible. 
But a year ago when we were debating embryo stem cell research, many of 
the people advocating embryo stem cell research were saying they would 
never sanction or approve the creation of embryos for scientific 
exploitation and then destruction. But yet that is now the very thing 
they are advocating for. So I think this is a very, very serious 
slippery slope.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the gentleman is familiar 
with the famous Nuremberg Code that was developed and emerged following 
the doctors' trial at Nuremberg in the late 1940s.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. I am.
  Mr. PENCE. Most physicians are.

[[Page H3764]]

  One of the principal tenets of the Nuremberg Code was that human 
subjects must consent to experiments; death or injury must not be 
anticipated results of the experiment; and the researcher must obtain 
the information they need by any other means possible before humans, 
including adequate animal experimentation.
  There are other pieces of the Nuremberg Code that require that the 
researcher is admonished to test his disease first and foremost on 
animals, and no experiment should be undertaken after all of those have 
been followed and unless it can be foreseen to ``yield fruitful results 
for the good of society unprocurable by other methods.''
  Now, it seems to me that the lessons of Nuremberg, and I would ask 
the gentleman to speak to that, the lessons of Nuremberg encapsulated 
in the Nuremberg Code are violated in several significant ways from the 
standpoint of medical ethics with regard to human experimentation, and 
most profoundly with regard to the fact that, as the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Weldon) has said here today, that these advances are 
procurable by other means than experimentation on human beings.
  I wondered, I would ask the gentleman, am I right in my 
interpretation of the Nuremberg Code and its relevance to this?
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. If the gentleman will continue to yield, yes, 
the gentleman brings up an extremely important point. The Nuremberg 
Code emerged in the aftermath of the atrocities committed by many 
physicians who were acting complicitly with the Nazis.
  A great deal of scientific information was obtained from some of that 
research; for example, how long can a human survive in very, very cold 
water. When I was in medical school, many physicians in training, and, 
as well, many of our professors, felt so strongly what was done was 
evil that we should not even use the information; that we should just 
throw the information away, that it was so bad. The Code, of course, 
emerged.
  The critical issue here is some people do not consider the embryo 
human because it does not have an organized central nervous system; it 
cannot respond to stimulation. But the critical issue here is where do 
we draw the line? It is human life; it is a developing human life. We 
all began that way.
  Just as a year ago, they were saying we would never create an embryo 
to extract stem cells from, we only want to use the excess embryos from 
the fertility lab. Now they are saying, oh, we have to create these 
embryos to cure all these diseases. The next step will be, we have to 
do continued research and allow these embryos to grow in the lab to the 
point where they are developing a nervous system. So to me, the safest 
thing and the best thing to do is to make it illegal to create a clone 
at the very beginning.
  I just want to point out, a lot of people who advocate cloning for 
research purposes, they all say, but I would never want to see 
reproductive cloning move ahead. I want to make a couple of points 
about that. If we have labs all over America creating cloned embryos, 
it will only be a matter of time before one of these embryos is 
implanted in a woman, because the implantation process occurs within 
the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship.
  It would be impossible, and as a matter of fact, I have a letter from 
the Justice Department saying it would be impossible for them to police 
that. They would have to go into all these labs and keep track of all 
the embryos. It would be impossible for them as police agencies to know 
if a human embryo was replaced with an animal embryo and one was 
surreptitiously implanted in a woman. So the only way to effectively 
prevent this, in my opinion, is to ban it from the very, very 
beginning.
  Also, we took testimony in my committee where the representative from 
the professional association of doctors who treat infertility kept 
saying in his testimony, a Dr. Cowan, how they did not support 
reproductive cloning at this time. He said it twice.
  During the questioning period, I said to him, ``Why are you saying 
`at this time?' '' And he made it very, very clear to me in his 
response to my questioning that they would like embryo cloning to 
proceed and research cloning to proceed so they could work through all 
the technical problems in cloning, such as large fetuses, threat to the 
health of the mother, and once all those problems were worked through, 
they would like to be able to offer reproductive cloning to infertile 
couples.
  I thought that was a very, very significant statement, because it 
made it very, very clear to me that if we do not ban cloning at its 
very, very beginning, eventually we will have reproductive cloning. 
Either it will be done surreptitiously from embryos that have been 
spirited out of these labs and implanted in women, or it will be done 
openly by fertility experts.
  So if the American people do not want cloning, the best way to 
prevent cloning from occurring is to ban it in its very beginning.
  I want to just add one more thing, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield.
  Mr. PENCE. Certainly.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, many liberals voted for the 
cloning ban. I thought that was one of the unique features that emerged 
from the debate on human cloning here in the House of Representatives. 
We had people of very, very divergent opinion. We had some Christian 
people, some Jewish people, Democrats, Republicans; we had liberals and 
conservatives.
  Why is that? Why did people unite around this ban on human cloning? 
They came at it from different perspectives, and for many liberals it 
was a woman's rights issue.
  This is an incredibly important point. It is getting inadequate 
discussion, in my opinion. If we are going to allow research cloning to 
proceed, these labs are going to need hundreds and possibly thousands 
of eggs. Where are they going to get these eggs? They are going to get 
them from women. How do you get eggs from a woman? You have to expose 
them to drugs. You have to give them drugs to cause something called 
superovulation. One of these drugs that they use has a 30 percent 
incidence of causing depression. Then you have to anesthetize the woman 
to extract the eggs.

  Who will do that? What woman would put themselves through that, or 
submit themselves to exposure to a drug that has potential side effects 
including depression, and then submit to a general anesthetic to 
extract these eggs? We know who will do that: women who are desperate; 
poor women, women who are desperately in need of money. It will 
ultimately end up in exploitation of women.
  I just want to read this quote from Judy Norsigian. She is the author 
of a book, 2 million copies have been printed and sold, Our Bodies, 
Ourselves. She is prochoice. But what does she say? ``Because embryo 
cloning will compromise women's health, turn their eggs and wombs into 
commodities, compromise their reproductive autonomy, and, with virtual 
certainty, lead to the production of `experimental' human beings, we 
are convinced that the line must be drawn here.''
  She was not alone. She was not the only person on the left who rose 
up. Stuart Newman and several others rose up and said, on this issue we 
agree with the conservatives, that human cloning should be banned. It 
is for that reason that we had such an extraordinary vote in the House 
of Representatives.
  I feel very, very strongly that if we cannot get the other body to 
act on this issue, we minimally need to make it illegal to patent a 
human clone. I feel also very, very strongly that this is not only 
unethical, it is unnecessary.
  The research data is showing more and more the huge, tremendous 
potential of adult stem cells, and that the embryo stem cells indeed 
may actually prove to be less advantageous to use. I honestly think as 
the science progresses on this that therapeutic cloning and 
reproductive cloning by the scientific community will ultimately be 
abandoned, and that the ultimate place that many of these advocates of 
cloning want to go to is creating cloned models of human disease that 
can be manipulated in the lab for the development of genetic treatments 
and for the development of pharmacological agents, and that they 
ultimately want to patent these things so they can make money off of 
them. I think that is what is ultimately going to end up driving this 
whole debate in the United States.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his 
extraordinary remarks about not only unnecessary, but unethical 
therapeutic cloning.

[[Page H3765]]

  I am very humbled, Mr. Speaker, not only to be joined by the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), the author of what we were able to 
do in the House in the area of banning reproductive cloning, but also 
to have been joined by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), one 
of the leading members of the Pro-Family Alliance.
  But perhaps more than anyone in this institution, with the possible 
exception of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Smith) is and has been for many, many years the leading 
voice for the sanctity of human life in the United States Congress. He 
holds the powerful chairmanship of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, 
but he speaks with enormous moral authority on issues related to life.
  I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), for yielding me this time, for 
taking out this time on this very important Special Order to look at 
the issue of cloning.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) certainly has been the leader 
of this historic legislation. He is the prime sponsor of the bill that 
passed in the House. It ought to be acted on in the other body as soon 
as possible for the sake of humanity, and for the sake of so many who 
would be injured irreparably by delay. Delay is denial, and I hope that 
Mr. Daschle and the leadership on the Senate side will rethink the 
dilatory tactics they have engaged in to preclude consideration of this 
important human rights legislation.
  In the 21st century, bioethical issues, Mr. Speaker, really are the 
human rights issues, especially in Western democracies like the United 
States. I have spent 22 years working on human rights issues, including 
religious freedom and trafficking in persons. I was the prime sponsor 
of the antitrafficking legislation. Yesterday we had a day-long hearing 
on this scourge of human trafficking, which injures, hurts and ends in 
the rape of women; but in countries like the United States, where we 
have a sophisticated medical capability and a scientific capability, 
bioethical issues are really a human rights issue.
  What we do for those prior to birth, those who are fragile, whether 
it be the issue of abortion or euthanasia or infanticide or, in this 
case cloning, we need to step up to the plate and not become enablers 
by inaction. We have become enablers of atrocities and human rights 
abuses. We cannot stand on the sidelines.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), our leadership especially, 
including Speaker Hastert and the rest of our leadership team, and a 
bipartisan, real healthy majority stepped up to the plate to pass this 
legislation, and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) has been a real 
leader in this Congress on these human rights issues, especially as it 
relates to the sanctity of human life.
  Mr. Speaker, just let me say that promoting human cloning for 
research is indeed shockingly shortsighted, and it lacks a moral basis. 
I understand the drive to cure debilitating diseases and to improve 
health care for those who are suffering, because I have been fighting 
for funding for disease cures for 22 years as a Member of Congress.
  I would just note parenthetically, I am the co-chairman of the Autism 
Caucus, I am co-chairman of the Alzheimer's Caucus. As my good friend 
indicated earlier, I am chairman of the full Committee on Veterans' 
Affairs. Half of our budget, approximately, is dedicated to health 
care. We have a significant research budget that we try to use as 
wisely as possible to help our spinal cord-injured veterans and a whole 
host of other problems from post-traumatic stress disorder right on 
through.
  Let me just say, having fought like the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Weldon) and so many others trying to find cures for Alzheimer's, 
Parkinson's, cancer, lung disease, asthma, spina bifida, autism and a 
host of other debilitating diseases, it is cruel, I would respectfully 
submit, it is utterly cruel to tell those who suffer from these 
diseases that somehow they will be cured through the making of a clone 
of themselves to cannibalize for parts.
  It is also cruel to divert limited resources from promising, ethical 
adult and umbilical stem cell research to unethical, impractical human 
cloning research. There is only so much money available; and as the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) pointed out a moment ago, in the 
area of regenerative medicine, adult stem cells, embryonic, cord blood, 
these hold enormous promise that goes underutilized when we go on this 
fantasy of creating clones.
  Again, embryonic stem cell research derived from clones is unethical. 
On the other hand, we have the promise of real breakthroughs and then 
real application, as we are already doing with adult stem cells and 
umbilical cord stem cells. This research has no ethical baggage. These 
provide cures, they provide hope, and they provide rehabilitation and 
regenerative capabilities.
  Mr. Speaker, human cloning is not just a slippery slope. It is indeed 
stepping off a moral cliff. If our government approved human cloning 
for research, it would be the first time we would sanction the special 
creation of human life for the sole purpose of destroying it. Not only 
would we be sanctioning human cloning, we would also have a law that 
would require the death of those human clones, whether it be at 5 days 
or 14 days or whatever new arbitrary line would be drawn.
  Human cloning represents the commodification and eventual 
commercialization of human life, and it would create a class of human 
beings who exist not as ends in themselves, like all of us, but as a 
means to achieve the ends of others. A law that promotes human cloning 
for research is worse, far worse than no bill at all.
  Once stockpiles of cloned human embryos are created for research, how 
realistic will it be really to have an implementation ban? Not only is 
allowing research cloning immoral, it would also not work. We do not 
fight the war on drugs by telling the public to manufacture as much 
cocaine as possible, pile it up in warehouses, but make sure to destroy 
it before anyone can smoke it or inhale it. If anyone suggested that 
strategy on the floor of the House, they would be criticized from here 
to breakfast; but that is exactly what the proponents of human cloning 
for research are advocating, and with a straight face. In addition, 
they are not talking about how these human embryo forms would be 
created.
  Human embryos, if my colleagues read ``Brave New World'' and can look 
at the Orwellian visions we have had in the past, they can happen and 
will happen if the gentleman from Florida's (Mr. Weldon) historic 
legislation is not enacted and enacted soon.
  The clock is running out on this, and I just want to say and 
reiterate what the good doc said a moment ago about the negative impact 
that this will have on women. If, as the proponents of research cloning 
claim happens, they will someday be able to cure human beings, which we 
do not think will happen, but say it does happen, we will see more 
drugs being used, super-ovulating drugs, to promote this egg 
harvesting.
  I want to reiterate what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) has 
on his plaque up there which was from, ``Our Bodies, Ourselves for the 
New Century,'' and it was written by a woman who does not agree with me 
or many of us on the pro-life issue of the right to life of the unborn, 
but she points out, Judy Norsigian, ``Because embryo cleaning will 
compromise women's health, turn their eggs and wombs into commodities, 
compromise their reproductive autonomy and, with virtual certainty, 
lead to the production of `experimental' human beings, we are convinced 
that the line must be drawn here.''
  She has joined us, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) pointed 
out, a number of other people who have never supported a pro-life piece 
of legislation to cross the line and say, wait a minute, time out, we 
are not going to go across that Orwellian line and manufacture human 
beings for the sole purpose of destroying them and then cannibalizing 
their remains.
  This is important human rights legislation that the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Weldon) has introduced, has gotten passed in the House 
with a bipartisan majority of both sides. We have got to pass it soon; 
and again, I call on the Senate, do not be enablers of

[[Page H3766]]

human rights abuses. We have got to find a way of getting this 
legislation down to President Bush. He has already signaled clearly and 
unmistakably, most recently in a White House ceremony, that he will 
sign this in a heartbeat. We have got to do this for the next 
generation and for the generations to come.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Smith) for his passion and extraordinary complement of his 
participation in this and would yield for a moment before we close this 
Special Order to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman; and I just 
want to add, under President Clinton, he established the National 
Bioethics Advisory Commission, and they said, The commission began its 
discussions of cloning, fully recognizing that any efforts, any humans 
to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the 
creation of an embryo with the apparent potential to be implanted in 
utero and developed to term, what they mean by that is a baby, and that 
is really what this is all about.
  Is it a human life? What is going to happen to it? Are we going to 
create, exploit it and discard it? Are we going to allow them to be 
manufactured into human beings, the first man-created human in the 
history of the world?
  I say we do not cross that Orwellian line; we draw the line here, the 
line of morality and ethics and say, no, we do not want to go there.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Weldon) for his thoughtful comments today and the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Smith), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts). Mr. 
Speaker, I am grateful for these men of colossal stature in this 
institution and in this country to join us.
  It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, as I close, we must decide whether we 
will master science or be mastered by it. It is the fundamental moral 
and ethical question of our time. As the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Smith) said, we must prevent human life from becoming a wholesale 
commodity that is created and consumed.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, we must be about the values of the American 
people, people like Mike and Denice Dora, farmers in Rush County, 
Indiana, of 15 years, our friends; but they are people who look and 
open up that ancient book upon which our founders placed so much trust 
that says, ``Remember this and consider, recall it to mind, you 
transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and 
there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.''
  This debate must center around that conviction, those values; and if 
it does, we will prevent this moral horror of human cloning at any 
level, for any purpose, from becoming a reality in American 
civilization.

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