[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 108 (Thursday, August 1, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7862-S7864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IN MEMORY OF TIMOTHY WHITE
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I wanted to take a moment to note the
passing of Timothy White, who was the editor-in-chief of Billboard
magazine until he died unexpectedly a few weeks ago, leaving a wife and
two young sons. He has been honored by many throughout the music
industry, particularly for his trumpeting of new, not yet famous
artists, working to give them space in a medium generally reserved for
the already successful.
We worked with Tim on artists' rights issues, such as work-for-hire,
during my tenure as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. His efforts on
behalf of all artists will be remembered.
Looking to boost artists whom he felt deserved more attention, he
wrote, ``At its high end, rock `n' roll can periodically fill in the
hollows of this faithless era--especially when the music espouses
values that carry the ring of emotional candor.'' I share the hope that
true artists who offer a lift to their listeners from the weight of the
world will be found by those seeking the joy and inspiration music can
offer, and note with sadness the passing of a friend of that cause, as
I also join my friends in the music industry in extending our
condolences and best wishes at this difficult time to Tim's wife and
sons. I trust they will find Tim's legacy a source of pride and solace
in the coming months and years.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise to say a few words
about human cloning as the Senate will soon be recessing for the month
of August. Not only has the Senate failed to ban human cloning
altogether, we have not had a meaningful debate on this critical issue.
Let me begin my remarks with an insightful and profound line in the
movie ``Jurassic Park,'' delivered by a mathematician played by Jeff
Goldblum. AS the creator of the park is praising his scientific team
for taking science into uncharted waters, Goldblum's character
interrupts him. ``Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or
not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.'' The Senate
needs to stop and think if it should.
In my remarks today, I will outline five reasons why the Senate
should vote for the Brownback-Landrieu bill which bans all human
cloning. Let me start by saying that there has been a lot of talk about
``the two different kinds of cloning''--that is, reproductive and
therapeutic. But let me be clear: All human cloning is reproductive, in
the sense that it creates--reproduces--a new developing human intended
to be genetically identical to the cloned subject. The difference is
that one is intended to be carried to term and the other is intended to
be deliberately killed for its cells.
Therapeutic cloning is when scientists clone an embryo solely to
utilize its stem cells either to create large ``control groups'' or to
attempt mass production of genetically matched stem sells for treatment
of diseases. Many of my colleagues believe that only reproductive
cloning is immoral, but they are in favor of therapeutic cloning. They
say that therapeutic cloning is beneficial because it has the potential
to help people with diseases. They don't want a cloned embryo to be
implanted in a woman's womb and begin to grow, but they support
creating the embryo and then plucking its stem cells until it dies.
The first reason my colleagues should vote to ban all human cloning
is that the human embryo is a human life with a soul, whether it is
cloned or is conceived naturally, and should be destroyed for any
reason. There is not one person in the Senate or on the face of the
Earth who did not begin their life as a human embryo.
If we allow the creation of embryos solely for their destruction, we
will effectively be discriminating against an entire class of human
beings by saying to them: I will destroy your life for the sake of
someone else's or my own. If we accept the notion that some lives have
more value than others, if we allow scientists or doctors or
politicians to play God and determine which lives have value and which
do not, then we have demolished the very foundation upon which we have
built our freedom. Human embryos are not machines to be used for spare
parts, all in the name of ``medical progress.'' We cannot view human
life as an exploitable natural resource, ripe for the harvest.
Some base their passion for so-called therapeutic cloning upon the
false premise that what is created in the lab is not a human embryo.
The facts dispute these unsupported claims. Dr. John Gearhart of Johns
Hopkins University, one of the discoverers of human embryonic stem
cells, told the President's Council on Bioethics on April 25, 2002,
that he thinks the product of cloning is and should be called an
``embryo.'' He said: ``I know that you are grappling with this question
of whether a cloned embryo created in the lab is the same thing as an
embryo produced by egg and sperm, and whether we should call it an
`embryo', but anything that you construct at this point in time that
has the properties of those structures to me is an embryo, and we
should not be changing vocabulary at this point in time.''
Even the American Medical Association believes that the clone is
fully human. The Senate should also listen to the House of
Representatives and the American public. The House passed a strong
prohibition on human cloning last summer, and poll after poll shows
that the vast majority of American citizens are opposed to all human
cloning.
The second reason to ban all human cloning is that there are better
and more ethical ways to discover cures for diseases that do not
involve the destruction of a human embryo, especially in light of the
fact that cloning may not even work!
Almost weekly we read of amazing breakthroughs in the scientific and
medical communities using adult stem cells and other noncontroversial
tissues and cells to treat human conditions. Adult stem cells are used
with success in more than 45 human clinical trials, while embryonic
stem cells and stem cells from human clones have not helped a single
person. Here are just a few examples of the successes of adult stem
cells:
Last July, the Harvard University Gazette reported that mice with
Type 1 diabetes were completely cured of their disease using adult stem
cells. Additionally, University of Florida scientists reported recently
that adult rat liver stem cells can evolve into insulin- producing
pancreatic cells, a finding that has implications for the future of
diabetes research.
On June 15 of last year, the Globe and Mail reported that Israeli
doctors injected a paraplegic with her own white blood cells, and she
regained the ability to move her toes and control her bladder.
In December of last year, Tissue Engineering, a medical journal,
reported that researchers believe they will be able to use stem cells
found in fat to rebuild bone. If this research works, people with
osteoporosis and other degenerative bone conditions could benefit
significantly.
A researcher at the University of Minnesota has discovered what is
being called the ultimate stem cell. The stem cells found in adult bone
marrow have passed every test by proving that they can form every
single tissue in the body, can be grown in culture indefinitely with no
signs of aging, can be isolated from humans, and do not form cancerous
masses when injected into adults.
Scientists from Celmed BioSciences reported that adult neural stem
cells taken from a patient's own central nervous system have been
successfully used to treat Parkinson's disease. Their research suggests
this method of using adult stem cells may possibly be useful in
treating a variety of other neurological conditions.
Scientists reported success last week in converting skin cells into
immune cells. This development has great promise for treating diseases
such as diabetes, immune deficiencies, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and
spinal cord injuries. When using cells from the patient's own body, the
risk of rejection is overcome.
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Researchers found that intravenous injections of cells from human
umbilical cord blood improved the neurological and motor function of
rats recovering from severe traumatic brain injury. The study appears
in the June 6 issue of the journal Cell Transplantation, a special
issue that focuses on emerging approaches in neural transplantation and
brain repair.
In fact, these ethical approaches to stem cell research are also
safer for patients than embryonic stem cell research because embryonic
stem cells may cause tumors in patients, and the body may reject
embryonic tissues in the same way the immune system rejects
transplanted organs. As President Bush has stated: ``the benefits of
research cloning are highly speculative. Advocates of research cloning
argue that stem cells obtained from cloned embryos would be injected
into a genetically identical individual without risk of tissue
rejection. But there is evidence, based on animal studies, that cells
derived from cloned embryos may indeed be rejected.'' Embryonic stem
cells have never been used successfully in a human trial. The haven't
even been used to completely cure disease in a rat or a mouse.
With the success of adult stem cells, you do not need to clone human
beings. Let's invest in medical research that the entire Senate can
support. There is also increasing evidence to indicate that human
cloning may not even work! You may disagree with my moral or ethical
arguments, and you may not care how successful adult stem cell
therapies have been, but I hope you will at least pay attention to this
important point. Let me repeat it: There is convincing evidence that
human cloning may not even work.
The April 5, 2001, issue of Nature reports that cloning human embryos
to harvest their stem cells is being abandoned by many researchers as
inefficient, costly, and unnecessary. The article says that ``many
researchers have come to doubt whether therapeutic cloning will ever be
efficient enough to be commercially viable.'' Noting the short supply
of human eggs and the expense and inefficiency of cloning, the article
concludes that the prospects for therapeutic cloning have ``dimmed''
and those who still favor it are taking a ``minority view.''
Dr. Stuart Newman of NY Medical College noted in his March 5 Senate
testimony that genetically matched cells from cloning may well be
useless in treating conditions with a genetic basis such as juvenile
diabetes--because these cells will have the same genetic defect that
caused the problem in the first place.
Due to these factors, as well as advances in genetically tailoring
cells without using cloning, many experts do not now expect therapeutic
cloning to have a large clinical impact. In fact, this whole approach
is said to be ``falling from favor'' among both British and American
researchers.
Last December, Michael West of Advanced Cell Technology predicted
that within 6 months, his company would be ready to create `magic''
cells that would save 3,000 lives per day because he would be able to
clone a human embryo. However, it was later revealed that West was
unable to garner stem cells from his cloned embryos. Scientists quickly
pronounced West's cloning experiment a failure. Dr. Donald Kennedy
summarized the study this way: ``This scientific effort did not succeed
by any measure.''
Thomas Okarma, the chief executive of Geron Corp., a cell therapy
company, has no interest in using cloned embryos to produce customized
treatments for disease. According to the L.A. Times, he said the odds
favoring success ``are vanishing small,'' and the costs are daunting.
He also said that it would take ``thousands of [human] eggs on an
assembly line'' to produce a custom therapy for a single person. ``The
process is a nonstarter, commercially,'' he said.
Let's review the headlines of what the experts say about cloning:
``Did not succeed'', ``Falling from favor'', ``may well be useless'',
``prospects have dimmed'', ``vanishing small'', ``did not succeed'',
and ``nonstarter''. If I were a cloning advocate, I wouldn't want this
to be made public.
Writer Wesley J. Smith says human cloning is indeed immoral. But that
isn't the reason it will eventually be rejected. He says ``there is
increasing evidence that therapies based on cloned embro cells would be
so difficult and expensive to develop and so utterly impractical to
bring to the bedside, that the pie-in-the-sky promises which fuel the
pro-cloning side of the debate are unlikely to materialize. Not only is
human cloning immoral but it may have negative utility--in other words,
attempting to develop human cloning technologies for therapeutic use
may drain resources and personnel from more useful and practical
therapies.''
I want to briefly mention another form of hype that ties into the
notion of human cloning and its ``boundless potential.'' Let's talk
about the much ballyhooed fetal tissue transplantation experiments. It
was originally thought of as the ``ultimate cure of the future'' and
that interfering with these experiments was to interfere with saving
countless lives. Now, after 13 years of private and publicly funded
trials, some of the worse case scenarios have come to pass, while
nothing of scientific value has been accomplished.
Today there is a thriving market in the sale of baby body parts,
which I brought to light a couple of years ago. Also, the methods and
timing of abortions are being changed to garner better tissue for
research, and the most comprehensive study on the use of fetal tissue
to treat Parkinson's showed no overall health benefit. Research
described side effects of the treatment as ``absolutely devastating.''
Patients implanted with fetal tissue chewed constantly, writhed and
twisted, and one patient had to be put on a feeding tube because his
spasms were too severe. Dr. Paul Greene says it best: ``no more fetal
transplants.'' Some panacea.
Gene therapy is another example of hype that not only as yielded no
results, but is has also been responsible for the deaths of many people
and over 1,000 serious adverse effects. A patient's group advocate
noted: ``It's hardly gotten anywhere. I have been very disappointed.''
The only thing cloning will do is ``clone'' all the similar hype that
has gone before it.
Additionally, trials in animal cloning indicate that 95 to 99 percent
of the embryos produced by cloning will die; of those that survive
until late in pregnancy, most will be stillborn or die shortly after
birth. The rest may survive with unpredictable but devastating health
problems. In fact, a review of all the world's cloned animals suggests
every one of them is genetically and physically defective.
Four years ago, it took about 270 attempts to clone Dolly, the sheep.
Is the Senate willing to go on record to sacrifice 270 human lives in
order to successfully produce 1 cloned human being?
The third point I would like to drive home to you is the slippery
slope argument. It is interesting to see how this debate has evolved,
especially when one considers last year's debate, which was about
whether to condone the dissection of embryos that would be destroyed
anyway. This year's debate is about whether to destroy embryos that
wouldn't have been created otherwise. One of my colleagues, on the
subject of killing embryos, had this to say: ``Private companies are
creating embryos specifically for stem cells, and I think that's a very
bad idea.'' However, he is now sponsoring a bill that would allow what
he once opposed: the creation of embryos specifically for stem cell
research.
If the debate alone has evolved and is subjective and prone to change
and charging down a slippery slope, how much more so the issue of
medical experimentation with human beings? Many clonings supporters
scoff at the slippery slope argument, but let's look at what is
happening with animal experimentation. Already scientists have taken
cloned cow embryos past the blastocyst stage, allowed them to develop
into fetuses, and reimplanted their tissue back into the donor animal.
If we allow for therapeutic cloning--again, this is cloning where you
grow a cloned embryo simply to utilize its cells for medical research--
why not allow cloned embryos to further develop until their organs can
be harvested for transplantation? If a cloned baby could save or
improve the lives of many people, why not sacrifice its organs for the
sake of many other people's quality of life? The only distinction, if
morality and ethics are not a
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consideration, is a few months of time to wait for the embryos to
develop.
It is no secret that our society wants to live forever. What would
stop a person with financial means from cloning little versions of
themselves so that when they get old, they could pluck out a younger
version of a failing organ from their clone?
If we are willing to use cloned human embryos to save human lives,
why shouldn't we consider sacrificing other ``less important'' people
for our own gain? For example, how about taking healthy organs from
persons who are in a permanent vegetative state? What about plucking
parts from the terminally ill, mentally retarded, or ``old'' people
past the age of 60. I know this may sound far-fetched to my colleagues,
but let us ask ourselves what the Senators standing in this Chamber a
mere 25 years ago would have thought of a debate such as the one we are
having here today on human cloning. They would have thought predictions
of deliberation on such matters were far-fetched as well.
Once we start down the slippery slope of creating life for
utilitarian purposes, there is no definitive line that separates what
we ought and ought not to do. There are no ethical boundaries that will
keep scientists in check once we accept the premise that the goal of
curing diseases outweighs the ethical or moral value of human life. But
once we accept the ``anything goes'' philosophy, then ``everything
goes.'' When we begin to decide who should live and who should not, we
effectively remove God from every area of our lives and our Nation.
After the events of September 11, it is clear that this Nation needs
God more than ever.
This is to say nothing of the eventual creation of a brave new world.
Will genes be modified to give people higher IQs or eliminate the
tendency to be overweight? What if we inadvertently introduce
disastrous abnormalities into the human race? Will we introduce
abnormalities that lead to new diseases that afflict our fellow man?
Cloning is just not worth it.
The fourth point to consider is that human cloning represents the
commodification and commercialization of human life. Some biotech firms
hope to patent specific cloned human embryos for sale for many types of
experimentation--just as designer strains of cats, mice, and other
animals are already patented and sold as ``medical models.'' These
firms are amoral and will pursue whichever path provides the greatest
potential for financial gain. They will not regulate themselves. This
Congress bears the responsibility of regulating these companies. It is
our duty to the American public to hold amoral corporations to a higher
ethical standard. These biotech firms are forgetting that human life is
not a good to be traded in the marketplace nor a means by which they
can profit financially.
The fifth and final reason we should not allow any form of human
cloning is that it will be impossible to keep women from implanting
cloned embryos into their wombs.
A ban on reproductive cloning will not work because cloning would
take place within the privacy of a doctor-patient relationship and
because the transfer of embryos to begin a pregnancy is a simple
procedure. Would the woman be forced to abort the ``illegal product''?
This has been called the ``clone and kill'' approach because you would
force the woman to kill her unborn child.
Even the Department of Justice agrees that it is nearly impossible to
enforce a bill that allows for the creation of human embryos for
research. They said: ``Enforcing a modified cloning ban would be
problematic and pose certain law enforcement challenges that would be
lessened with an outright ban on human cloning.'' And ``anything short
of an outright ban would present other difficulties to law
enforcement.''
If you think we will never see an implanted clone, think again.
Italian fertility specialist Severino Antinori is now explicitly
claiming that three women are pregnant with clones. One of the
pregnancies is in its 10th week.
The bottom line is that if we only vote to ban reproductive cloning
but allow for therapeutic cloning, at some point we will start hearing
stories of women who are pregnant with clones of their dead children,
clones of their husband, and clones of themselves. We will have opened
up the Pandora's box, and we will bear the responsibility for all that
may follow.
Unless humans are seen as created in God's image and endowed by Him
with the right to live, there will be no stopping the scientists and
doctors from doing whatever they want to do.
We stand here today in an important moment in time. Pro-cloning
advocates have promoted the lofty claims of miraculous breakthroughs.
They play on the emotions of the ill and those who care about them,
which is all of us. But just below the surface there is a dark,
frightening premise. They believe that science has the right to play
God, to create a lower form of human life to be harvested for medical
research. This is ethically and morally wrong. Even science does not
back all the hype from the pro-cloning side. There is no proof that
sacrificing our ethics and morality to allow human cloning will even
help these patients. There are better, ethical solutions.
Today, my colleagues, we must choose. This one decision will protect
human life as we know it, or it will open the door to an ethical,
medical, and moral wasteland, We can help those suffering with diseases
without sacrificing our Nation's core principles. To oppose any form of
human cloning is to preserve the sanctity of human life while providing
real solutions based on real science. Let us choose what is right. We
must ban all human cloning, no matter how it is cloaked. Future
generations will judge us based upon what we do today. We must think of
the future we want for our children--an ethical world that use sound,
moral science to heal, and that respects the dignity of every human
life.
Our country stands at a crossroads. I hope the United States will not
follow the road taken by God's chosen people many years ago as recorded
in the Holy Bible: ``In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as
he saw fit.'' (Judges 21:25)
I hope and pray that the Senate will eventually ban all forms of
human cloning.
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