[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 177 (Thursday, November 15, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14490-S14491]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BROWNBACK (for himself, Ms. Landrieu, Mr. Burr, Mr. 
        Coburn, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Corker, Mr. Craig, Mr. DeMint, Mrs. 
        Dole, Mr. Ensign, Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Kyl, Mr. Martinez, Mr. Thune, 
        Mr. Vitter, Mr. Voinovich, and Mr. McCain):
  S. 2358. A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit 
human-animal hybrids; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Human-
Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act, joined by Senator Landrieu and 15 other 
cosponsors.
  A healthy imagination is a good thing in a young child. Children may 
dream of becoming a firefighter or an astronaut. In the case of really 
young children--especially when they love animals--they may even 
imagine being a horse or a dog. I don't see any harm in this . . . as 
long as there is a general attachment to reality as the child matures.
  However, today, we are starting to see such wildly imaginative dreams 
being transformed into reality in a few rogue science labs in this 
country and abroad. Efforts are being marshaled to push us in the 
direction of experiments to create human-animal hybrids. Amazingly, 
here at the dawn of the 21st century, the Island of Dr. Moreau is 
becoming more than a fiction.
  The legislation that we introduce today is very modest in scope. 
Though a few researchers may argue that it goes too far, there are many 
more who argue that it does not go far enough. I believe that the 
legislation that we offer today, hits just the right chord to be in 
tune with our society's needs. We do not want to stifle legitimate 
science. We only want to stop the efforts of mad scientists. In short, 
this bill only bans the creation of organisms that truly blur the line 
between humans and animals.
  For instance, the legislation is so modest that it does not view all 
human-animal mixes as ``hybrids.'' This is because we recognize that 
some procedures--which currently use such techniques--do not blur the 
line between species. For example, a human with a replacement pig heart 
valve--such as our former colleague, Senator Jesse Helms is not 
considered a hybrid under this bill. Additionally, mixes that do not 
blur the line between human and animal--such as a mouse created with a 
human immune system, on which drugs could be tested for AIDS patients 
would not be banned. Again, this is because there is no blurring of the 
identity of the creatures involved.
  What is banned is the creation of hybrid creatures that blur the line 
between species. For instance, creating an animal with human 
reproductive organs or a primarily human brain would be prohibited 
because such a creature blurs the lines between the species. 
Additionally banned are the creation of hybrids through experimental 
cloning techniques and/or the fusion of human and animal gametes. With 
this common sense bipartisan legislation, we are basically going with 
the most modest of bans in order to ensure that we do not infringe upon 
legitimate scientific research.
  This ban would only hinder the efforts of mad scientists and rogue 
researchers. Legitimate scientists should have nothing to fear from the 
enactment of this legislative proposal.
  There are many different reasons to support this legislation. This is 
reflected in the diverse groups that support this bill. On the right 
are groups such as the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for 
America; on the left are groups like Friends of the Earth and the 
International Center for Technology Assessment. Both sides have 
different but equally valid reasons for supporting the Human-Animal 
Hybrid Prohibition Act.
  For now though, I would like to focus my attention on what I believe 
is the central ethical question: Why should we be opposed to human-
animal hybrids?
  I would submit that it is much more than what some have termed, ``the 
Yuck Factor.'' Rather, the reason to oppose human-animal hybrids is 
embedded in our very fabric as human beings. The reason to oppose the 
creation of human-animal hybrids is that the creation of such entities 
is a grave violation of human dignity and a defilement of the human 
person.
  Human beings have a fundamental right to be born fully human. To 
create a human-animal hybrid whose identity as a member of the species 
Homo sapiens is in doubt is a violation of that human dignity and a 
grave injustice.
  Think about this for a minute. What if--beyond your control--some mad 
scientist were to have created you as only 80-percent or 50-percent 
human. That would not be fair to you, but it would be something that 
you could not change and it would be something that you would have to 
live with for the whole of your existence on earth.
  The fundamental issue is the dignity of the human person, but it does 
quickly move into other issues, such as the creation of a sub-human 
servant class, or maybe even a super-human class that comes to dominate 
humanity.
  In the year 2000, one of the first attempts at human-animal hybrids 
was made. It was a vanguard attempt, which was shamed back into the 
silence of the mad scientist laboratory from which it came; but now as 
some scientists are trying to bring human-animal hybrids more into the 
mainstream, an essay on the year 2000 attempt is worth considering 
again. The essay, entitled, ``The Pig-Man Cometh'' appeared in the 
October 23, 2000, Weekly Standard, and from this piece I will quote 
extensively. In the piece, J. Bottum wrote:

       On Thursday, October 5, it was revealed that biotechnology 
     researchers had successfully created a hybrid of a human 
     being and a pig. A man-pig. A pig-man. The reality is so 
     unspeakable, the words themselves don't want to go together.
       Extracting the nuclei of cells from a human fetus and 
     inserting them into a pig's egg cells, scientists from an 
     Australian company called Stem Cell Sciences and an American 
     company called Biotransplant grew two of the pig-men to 32-
     cell embryos before destroying them. The embryos would have 
     grown further, the scientists admitted, if they had been 
     implanted in the womb of either a sow or a woman. Either a 
     sow or a woman. A woman or a sow.
       There has been some suggestion from the creators that their 
     purpose in designing this human pig is to build a new race of 
     subhuman creatures for scientific and medical use. . . .
       But what difference does it make whether the researchers' 
     intention is to create subhumans or superhumans? Either they 
     want to make a race of slaves, or they want to make a race of 
     masters. And either way, it means the end of our humanity.
       You can't say we weren't warned. This is the island of Dr. 
     Moreau. This is the brave new world. This is Dr. 
     Frankenstein's chamber. This is Dr. Jekyll's room. This is 
     Satan's Pandemonium, the city of self-destruction the rebel 
     angels wrought in their all-consuming pride.
       But now that it has actually come--manifest, inescapable, 
     real--there don't seem to be words that can describe its 
     horror sufficiently to halt it. May God have mercy on us, for 
     our modern Dr. Moreaus--our proud biotechnicians, our most 
     advanced genetic scientists--have already announced that they 
     will have no mercy.
       It's true that Stem Cell Sciences and Biotransplant have 
     now, under the weight of adverse publicity, decided to 
     withdraw their European patent application and modify their 
     American application. But they made no promise to stop their 
     investigations into the procedure. We simply have to rely 
     upon their sense of what is, as Mountford put it, ``ethically 
     immoral''--a sense sufficiently attenuated that they could 
     undertake the design of the pig-man in the first place. The 
     elimination of the human race has loomed into clear sight at 
     last.

[[Page S14491]]

       It used to be that even the imagination of this sort of 
     thing existed only to underscore a moral in a story. . . . 
     But we live at a moment in which British newspapers can 
     report on 19 families who have created test-tube babies 
     solely for the purpose of serving as tissue donors for their 
     relatives--some brought to birth, some merely harvested as 
     embryos and fetuses. A moment in which Harper's Bazaar can 
     advise women to keep their faces unwrinkled by having 
     themselves injected with fat culled from human cadavers. A 
     moment in which the Australian philosopher Peter Singer can 
     receive a chair at Princeton University for advocating the 
     destruction of infants after birth if their lives are likely 
     to be a burden. A moment in which the brains of late-term 
     aborted babies can be vacuumed out and gleaned for stem 
     cells.
       In the midst of all this, the creation of a human-pig 
     arrives like a thing expected. We have reached the logical 
     end, at last. We have become the people that, once upon a 
     time, our ancestors used fairy tales to warn their children 
     against--and we will reap exactly the consequences those 
     tales foretold.

  This was a grim philosophical essay, but the questions that it poses 
are worth reflecting upon--even if those questions make us cringe.
  Will society exercise some responsibility, or will it be led, 
mindlessly going wherever the mad scientists want to go? Every week, it 
seems that there are new developments. Yesterday, the science journal 
Nature published an article on advances in cloning technology using 
monkeys. This is a slightly different issue than human-animal hybrids, 
but it further illustrates the rapid changes, developments, and 
surprises occurring in science. Such developments must be harnessed by 
society and directed toward good and ethical ends; and if the 
developments cannot be directed to good ends, then they should be 
abandoned to the scrap heap of morally bankrupt ideas. If we neglect to 
direct our course, we will be led to the brink of destruction.
  I am more optimistic than the tone embodied in the Weekly Standard 
essay. I believe in the goodness of the American people and their 
elected representatives. I think that we can rise to the challenge to 
ensure that the marvels of science are properly channeled to serve 
humanity and human dignity.
  Consideration and passage of the ``Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition 
Act,'' which we introduce today, would be a wonderful step in the right 
direction.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise today to join with my colleague 
Senator Brownback of Kansas as a co-sponsor of S. 2358, the Human-
Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act. As stem cell research has progressed in 
recent years, Federal law has remained troublingly silent over its 
proliferation. This bill would place a ban on the creation, transfer, 
or transportation of a human-animal hybrid. Human-animal hybrids are 
defined as: a human embryo into which animal cells or genes are 
introduced, making its humanity uncertain; a hybrid embryo created by 
fertilizing a human egg with non-human sperm; a hybrid embryo created 
by fertilizing a non-human egg with human sperm; a hybrid embryo 
created by introducing a non-human nucleus into a human egg; a hybrid 
embryo created by introducing a non-human egg with human sperm; an 
embryo containing mixed sets of chromosomes from both a human and 
animal; an animal with human reproductive organs; an animal with a 
whole or predominantly human brain.
  In August of 2001, President Bush issued an executive order, allowing 
for Federal funding for stem cell research on the then-existing stem 
cell lines. In November of that same year, he appointed a council to 
monitor stem cell research, to recommend appropriate guidelines and 
regulations, and to consider all of the medical and ethical 
ramifications of biomedical innovation. To date, this council has 
issued numerous reports on the bioethics issues involved in stem cell 
research.
  Meanwhile, the scientific community has moved forward in its 
research. Just this morning, researchers from Oregon announced that 
they successfully used cloning to produce monkey embryos and then 
extract stem cells from the embryos. The National Academies of Science 
released guidelines for human embryonic stem cell research in 2005 and 
again in 2007. Everyday we, as Members of Congress, are faced with a 
fundamental question: How far we should go in the name of science?
  There is no doubt that embryonic stem cell research holds the promise 
of curing diseases such as Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and 
cancer. Even President Bush stressed the importance of federally-funded 
research in approving the original stem cell lines in 2001--he 
explicitly stated that Federal dollars help attract the best and 
brightest scientists and help ensure that new discoveries are widely 
shared at the largest number of research facilities.
  Federal funding not only allows us to encourage and financially 
support this research, it allows us to use the power of the purse to be 
sure it is done in the most safe and ethical way possible. I support 
Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research provided that the 
embryos used in these studies are those that are in excess from the 
fertility process and are knowingly donated for this purpose. I have 
met with many constituents suffering from life altering and fatal 
diseases and they have told me the impact that this research may have 
on their lives.
  But what Senator Brownback and I come forward with today is not about 
stem cell research with existing embryos. This is about a practice that 
has far-reaching ethical implications and brings into question our 
notion of humanity. Scientists have begun experimenting with injecting 
human neural stem cells into the brain of an animal. They are looking 
to insert a human nucleus into the egg of an animal and vice versa. 
They are looking to fertilize human eggs with non-human sperm and vice 
versa. They are on the verge of creating human-animal hybrids that 
truly blur the line between species. While the stated purpose may be a 
noble one--to advance medical research--the outcome is deplorable. At 
what point is scientific research going too far?
  We believe we have reached that point. Creating human-animal hybrids 
opens the door to a host of concerns. It is a violation of basic human 
dignity. It also has the potential to threaten human health by 
introducing infections from animal populations.
  The human body is not a product to be mass produced and stripped for 
parts, even in the earliest stages of its development. Assembly lines, 
patents, and warehouses are appropriate terms when talking about cars 
or computers, but not people. If we allow the creation of human-animal 
hybrids for research purposes, the end result will be a system of 
``hatcheries'' where such ambiguous embryos are grown in mass. We hold 
a certain value for the uniqueness of humans. To challenge that in the 
name of science will have consequences we cannot begin to predict or 
understand.
  A ban on this procedure helps to redirect science to equally 
promising areas. In addition, such a ban does not ban cloning and 
nuclear transfer techniques for the production of DNA, molecules, cells 
other than human embryos, tissues, organs, plants and animals. The type 
of ban that I support does nothing to restrict the vast majority of 
medical advancements that have and will continue to pave the way for 
potential cures for diseases such as Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal cord 
injuries, and cancer.
  But as elected officials, we must take action on matters of such 
grave importance. Our legislative leadership is badly needed in this 
area. For this reason, I ask for your support for the Human-Animal 
Hybrid Prohibition Act.
                                 ______