[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 18 (Thursday, February 12, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1413-S1414]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CLONING IN SOUTH KOREA

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning, many awoke to the news that 
South Korean scientists have successfully cloned a mature human embryo. 
This is an alarming development. Decades ago C.S. Lewis saw the dangers 
facing human dignity. In his essay ``The Abolition of Man,'' he warned 
in conquering nature, nature is actually conquering mankind. To clone a 
human being is to move from procreation to the manufacture of human 
life. And this is dangerous.

[[Page S1414]]

  My own profession is medicine. A good physician, must, I 
fundamentally believe, also be a very good scientist. I can tell you 
from my own experiences as a heart and lung transplant surgeon that 
without the revolutionary advances in medical science and in 
technology, my own transplant patients, heart and lung transplant 
patients of a decade ago, simply would not be alive today.
  Indeed, we must reject an irrational fear of technological advance. 
But the secret of human dignity is living within limits. Those are 
ethical limits and they are moral limits. They are limits that do not 
hamper human advances but they preserve them and indeed they promote 
them.
  We strongly support ethical stem cell research but we reject the 
cloning of human beings. Not only does human cloning experimentation of 
any kind offend the conscience, it is not medically necessary. As I 
have said on many occasions, there is no scientific basis to claim that 
human cloning experimentation is necessary for the long-term success or 
clinical application of stem cell research. If human beings are 
special, if human beings are truly sacred, then we must devote 
ourselves to a better world but we must not do evil to bring about 
good.

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