[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15200-15203]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 HUMAN CLONING PROHIBITION ACT OF 2001

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 214, I 
call up the bill (H.R. 2505) to amend title 18, United States Code, to 
prohibit human cloning, and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons). Pursuant to House Resolution 
214, the bill is considered read for amendment.
  The text of H.R. 2505 is as follows:

                               H. R. 2505

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Human Cloning Prohibition 
     Act of 2001''.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON HUMAN CLONING.

       (a) In General.--Title 18, United States Code, is amended 
     by inserting after chapter 15, the following:

                      ``CHAPTER 16--HUMAN CLONING

``Sec.
``301. Definitions.
``302. Prohibition on human cloning.

     ``Sec. 301. Definitions

       ``In this chapter:
       ``(1) Human cloning.--The term `human cloning' means human 
     asexual reproduction, accomplished by introducing nuclear 
     material from one or more human somatic cells into a 
     fertilized or unfertilized oocyte whose nuclear material has 
     been removed or inactivated so as to produce a living 
     organism (at any stage of development) that is genetically 
     virtually identical to an existing or previously exisiting 
     human organism.
       ``(2) Asexual reproduction.--The term `asexual 
     reproduction' means reproduction not initiated by the union 
     of oocyte and sperm.
       ``(3) Somatic cell.--The term `somatic cell' means a 
     diploid cell (having a complete set of chromosomes) obtained 
     or derived from a living or deceased human body at any stage 
     of development.

     ``Sec. 302. Prohibition on human cloning

       ``(a) In General.--It shall be unlawful for any person or 
     entity, public or private, in or affecting interstate 
     commerce, knowingly--
       ``(1) to perform or attempt to perform human cloning;
       ``(2) to participate in an attempt to perform human 
     cloning; or
       ``(3) to ship or receive for any purpose an embryo produced 
     by human cloning or any product derived from such embryo.
       ``(b) Importation.--It shall be unlawful for any person or 
     entity, public or private, knowingly to import for any 
     purpose an embryo produced by human cloning, or any product 
     derived from such embryo.
       ``(c) Penalties.--
       ``(1) Criminal penalty.--Any person or entity who violates 
     this section shall be fined under this section or imprisoned 
     not more than 10 years, or both.
       ``(2) Civil penalty.--Any person or entity that violates 
     any provision of this section shall be subject to, in the 
     case of a violation that involves the derivation of a 
     pecuniary gain, a civil penalty of not less than $1,000,000 
     and not more than an amount equal to the amount of the gross 
     gain multiplied by 2, if that amount is greater than 
     $1,000,000.
       ``(d) Scientific Research.--Nothing in this section 
     restricts areas of scientific research not specifically 
     prohibited by this section, including research in the use of 
     nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques to produce 
     molecules, DNA, cells other than human embryos, tissues, 
     organs, plants, or animals other than humans.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of chapters for part I 
     of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting 
     after the item relating to chapter 15 the following:

``16. Human Cloning..........................................301''.....

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The amendments printed in the bill are 
adopted.
  The text of H.R. 2505, as amended, is as follows:

                               H.R. 2505

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Human Cloning Prohibition 
     Act of 2001''.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON HUMAN CLONING.

       (a) In General.--Title 18, United States Code, is amended 
     by inserting after chapter 15, the following:

                      ``CHAPTER 16--HUMAN CLONING

``Sec.
``301. Definitions.
``302. Prohibition on human cloning.

     ``Sec. 301. Definitions

       ``In this chapter:
       ``(1) Human cloning.--The term `human cloning' means human 
     asexual reproduction, accomplished by introducing nuclear 
     material from one or more human somatic cells into a 
     fertilized or unfertilized oocyte whose nuclear material has 
     been removed or inactivated so as to produce a living 
     organism (at any stage of development) that is genetically 
     virtually identical to an existing or previously [exisiting] 
     existing human organism.
       ``(2) Asexual reproduction.--The term `asexual 
     reproduction' means reproduction not initiated by the union 
     of oocyte and sperm.
       ``(3) Somatic cell.--The term `somatic cell' means a 
     diploid cell (having a complete set of chromosomes) obtained 
     or derived from a living or deceased human body at any stage 
     of development.

     ``Sec. 302. Prohibition on human cloning

       ``(a) In General.--It shall be unlawful for any person or 
     entity, public or private, in or affecting interstate 
     commerce, knowingly--
       ``(1) to perform or attempt to perform human cloning;
       ``(2) to participate in an attempt to perform human 
     cloning; or
       ``(3) to ship or receive for any purpose an embryo produced 
     by human cloning or any product derived from such embryo.
       ``(b) Importation.--It shall be unlawful for any person or 
     entity, public or private, knowingly to import for any 
     purpose an embryo produced by human cloning, or any product 
     derived from such embryo.
       ``(c) Penalties.--
       ``(1) Criminal penalty.--Any person or entity [who] that 
     violates this section shall be fined under this [section] 
     title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
       ``(2) Civil penalty.--Any person or entity that violates 
     any provision of this section shall be subject to, in the 
     case of a violation that involves the derivation of a 
     pecuniary gain, a civil penalty of not less than $1,000,000 
     and not more than an amount equal to the amount of the gross 
     gain multiplied by 2, if that amount is greater than 
     $1,000,000.
       ``(d) Scientific Research.--Nothing in this section 
     restricts areas of scientific research not specifically 
     prohibited by this section, including research in the use of 
     nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques to produce 
     molecules, DNA, cells other than human embryos, tissues, 
     organs, plants, or animals other than humans.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of chapters for part I 
     of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting 
     after the item relating to chapter 15 the following:

``16. Human Cloning..........................................301''.....

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. After 1 hour of debate on the bill, as 
amended, it shall be in order to consider the further amendment printed 
in House Report 107-172, if offered by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Scott), or his designee, which shall be debatable for 10 minutes, 
equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent.
  After disposition of the amendment by the gentleman from Virginia 
(Mr. Scott), it shall be in order to consider the further amendment 
printed in the report by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Greenwood), which shall be considered read and debatable for 1 hour, 
equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent.
  The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) each will control 30 minutes of debate on 
the bill.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner).


                             General Leave

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2505, the bill 
under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Wisconsin?

[[Page 15201]]

  There was no objection.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2505, the Human Cloning 
Prohibition Act of 2001. This bill criminalizes the act of cloning 
humans, importing cloned humans, and importing products derived from 
cloned humans. It is what is needed, a comprehensive ban against 
cloning humans. It has bipartisan cosponsorship. It was reported 
favorably by the Committee on the Judiciary on July 24, and is 
supported by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human 
Services, Tommy J. Thompson, and by President Bush.
  Today we are considering more than the moral and ethical issues 
raised by human cloning. This vote is about providing moral leadership 
for a watching world. We have the largest and most powerful research 
community on the face of the Earth, and we devote more money to 
research and development than any other Nation in the world. Although 
many other nations have already taken steps to ban human cloning, the 
world is waiting for the United States to set the moral tone against 
this experimentation.
  Currently in the United States there are no clear rules or 
regulations over privately funded human cloning. Although the FDA has 
announced that it has the authority to regulate human cloning through 
the Public Health Service Act and the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, this 
authority is unclear and has not been tested. The fact of the matter is 
that the FDA cannot stop human cloning; it can only begin to regulate 
it. This will be a day late and a dollar short for a clone that is used 
for research, harvesting organs, or born grotesquely deformed.
  Meanwhile, there is a select group of privately funded scientists and 
religious sects who are prepared to begin cloning human embryos and 
attempting to produce a cloned child. While they believe this brave new 
world of Frankenstein science will benefit mankind, most would 
disagree. In fact, virtually every widely known and respected 
organization that has taken a position on reproductive human cloning 
flatly opposes this notion because of the extreme ethical and moral 
concerns.
  Others argue that cloned humans are the key that will unlock the door 
to medical achievements in the 21st century. Nothing could be further 
from the truth. These miraculous achievements may be found through stem 
cell research, but not cloning.
  Let me be perfectly clear: H.R. 2505 does not in any way impede or 
prohibit stem cell research that does not require cloned human embryos. 
This debate is whether or not it should be legal in the United States 
to clone human beings.
  While H.R. 2505 does not prohibit the use of cloning techniques to 
produce molecules, DNA cells other than human embryos, tissues, organs, 
plants, and animals other than humans, it does prohibit the creation of 
cloned embryos. This is absolutely necessary to prevent human cloning, 
because, as we all know, embryos become people.
  If scientists were permitted to clone embryos, they would eventually 
be stockpiled and mass-marketed. In addition, it would be impossible to 
enforce a ban on human reproductive cloning. Therefore, any legislative 
attempt to ban human cloning must include embryos.

                              {time}  1500

  Should human cloning ever prove successful, its potential 
applications and expected demands would undoubtedly and ultimately lead 
to a worldwide mass market for human clones. Human clones would be used 
for medical experimentation, leading to human exploitation under the 
good name of medicine. Parents would want the best genes for their 
children, creating a market for human designer genes.
  Again, governments will have to weigh in to decide questions such as 
what rights do human clones hold, who is responsible for human clones, 
who will ensure their health, and what interaction will clones have 
with their genealogical parent.
  Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) and 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) have introduced this 
legislation before a cloned human has been produced.
  As most people know, Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997. Since that 
time, scientists from around the globe have experimentally cloned a 
number of monkeys, mice, cows, goats, lambs, bulls and pigs. It took 
276 attempts to clone Dolly, and these later experiments also produced 
a very low rate of success, a dismal 3 percent. Now, some of the same 
scientists would like to add people to their experimental list.
  Human cloning is ethically and morally offensive and contradicts 
virtually everything America stands for. It diminishes the careful 
balance of humanity that Mother Nature has installed in each of us. If 
we want a society where life is respected, we should take whatever 
steps are necessary to prohibit human cloning.
  I believe we need to send a clear and distinct message to the 
watching world that America will not permit human cloning and that it 
does support scientific research. This bill sends this message, that it 
permits cloning research on human DNA molecules, cells, tissues, organs 
or animals, but prevents the creation of cloned human embryos.
  Mr. Speaker, support H.R. 2505. Stop human cloning and preserve the 
integrity of mankind and allow scientific research to continue.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the Members for an excellent 
debate during the debate on the rule, as well as I hope this one will 
be constructive. I ask the Members, suppose you learned that you had 
contracted a deadly disease, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, but the 
Congress had banned the single most promising avenue for curing the 
disease. And that is precisely what we will be doing if we pass the 
Weldon bill in its present form, because it is a sweeping bill.
  Let us give it credit. It is half right, it is half wrong. But it is 
so sweeping that it would not only ban reproductive cloning, but all 
uses of nuclear cell transfer for experimental purposes. This would 
stop ongoing studies designed to help persons suffering from a whole 
litany of diseases. So far-reaching is this measure that it bans the 
importation even of lifesaving medicine from other countries if it has 
had anything to do with experimental cloning. What does it mean? If 
another nation's scientist developed a cure for cancer, it would be 
illegal for persons living in this country to benefit from the drug.
  Question: Does this make good policy? Is this really what we want to 
do here this afternoon?
  Besides that, the legislation would totally undermine lifesaving stem 
cell research that so many Members in both bodies strongly support. One 
need not be a surgeon to understand that it is far preferable to 
replace diseased and cancer-ridden cells with new cells based on a 
patient's own DNA. We simply cannot replicate the needed cells with 
adult cells only, and this is why we need to keep experimenting with 
nuclear cell transfer.
  That is why I am trying to give the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Weldon), as much credit as humanly possible. It is half right, it is 
half wrong; and we are trying, in this debate, to make that correction.
  Now, if we really wanted to do something about cloning, about the 
problem of reproducing real people, then we invite the other side to 
join with us in passing the Greenwood-Deutsch substitute to criminalize 
reproductive cloning that will also be considered by the House today, 
for there is broad bipartisan support on both sides of the aisle for 
such a proposition, and we could come together and do something that I 
believe most of our citizens would like.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the distinguished 
former chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.

[[Page 15202]]


  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Weldon-Stupak bill.
  Every Member of this House casts thousands of votes in the course of 
a congressional career. Some of those votes we remember with 
satisfaction; others we remember with less pleasure. That is the burden 
we take on ourselves when we take the oath of our office: the burden of 
decision.
  We should feel the gravity of that burden today. For no vote that any 
of us will ever cast is as fraught with consequence as our vote on 
whether or not to permit human cloning.
  Advances in the life sciences have brought us to a decisive fork in 
the road. Will our new genertic knowledge and the biotechnologies it 
helps create, promote healing and genuine human flourishing? Or will we 
use this new knowledge to remanufacture the human condition by 
manufacturing human beings?
  The first road leads us to a brighter future, in which lives are 
enhanced and possibilities are enlarged, for the betterment of 
individuals and humanity. The second road leads us into the brave new 
world so chillingly described by Aldous Huxley more than 60 years ago; 
a world of manufactured men and women, designed to someone else's 
specifications, for someone's else's benefit, in order to fulfill 
someone else's agenda.
  When manufacture replaces begetting as the means to create the human 
future, the dehumanization of the future is here.
  That is what is at stake in this vote. That is what we are being 
asked to decide today. Are we going to use the new knowledge given us 
by science for genuinely humane ends? Or are we going to slide slowly, 
inexorably into the brave new world?
  When we succeeded in splitting the atom, an entire new world of 
knowledge about the physical universe opened before us. At the same 
time, as we remember all too well from the cold war, our new knowledge 
of physics, and the weapons it made possible, handed us the key to our 
own destruction. It continues to take the most serious moral and 
political reflection to manage the knowledge that physics gave us six 
decades ago.
  Now we face a similar, perhaps even greater, challenge. The mapping 
of the human genome and other advances in the life sciences have given 
humanity a range and breadth of knowledge just as potent in its 
possibility as the knowledge acquired by the great physicists of the 
mid-twentieth century. Our new knowledge in the life sciences contains 
within itself the seeds of good--for it is knowledge that could be used 
to cure the sick and enhance the lives of us all. But, like the 
knowledge gained by the physicists, the new knowledge acquired by 
biology and genetics can also be used to do great evil: and that is 
what human cloning is. It is a great evil. For it turns the gift of 
life into a product--a commodity.
  We have just enough time, now, to create a set of legal boundaries to 
guide the deployment of the new genetic knowledge and the development 
of the new biotechnologies so that this good thing--enhanced 
understanding of the mysteries of life itself--serves good ends, not 
dehumanizing ends. We have just enough time to insure that we remain 
the masters of our technology, not its products. We should use that 
time well--which is to say, thoughtfully. The new knowledge from the 
life sciences demands of us a new moral seriousness and a new quality 
of public reflection. These are not issues to be resolved by politics-
as-usual, any more than the issue of atomic energy could be resolved by 
politics-as-usual. These are issues that demand informed and courageous 
consciences.
  As free people, we have the responsibility to make decisions about 
the deployment of our new genetic knowledge with full awareness of the 
profound moral issues at stake. The questions before us in this bill, 
and in setting the legal framework for the future development of 
biotechnology, are not questions that can be well-answered by a simple 
calculus of utility: will it ``work?'' The questions raised by our new 
biological and genetic knowledge summon us to remember that most 
ancient of moral teachings, enshrined in every moral system known to 
humankind: never, ever use another human being as a mere means to some 
other end. That principle is the foundation of human freedom.
  When human life is special-ordered rather than conceived, ``human 
life'' will never be the same again. Begetting the human future, not 
manufacturing it, is the fork in the road before us. Indeed, to 
describe that fork in those terms is not quite right. For a 
manufactured human future is not a human, or humane, future.
  The world is watching us, today. How the United States applies the 
moral wisdom of the ages to the new questions of the revolution in 
biotechnology will set an example, for good or for ill, for the rest of 
humankind. If we make the decision we should today, in support of 
Congressman's Weldon's bill, the world will know that there is nothing 
inexorable about human cloning, and that it is possible for us to 
guide, rather than be driven by, the new genetics. The world will know 
that there is a better, more humane way to deploy the power that 
science has put into our hands.
  And the world will know that America still stands behind the pledge 
of our founding, a pledge to honor the integrity, the dignity, the 
sanctity, of every human life, as the foundation of our freedom.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Smith), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin 
for yielding time.
  Mr. Speaker, the manufacture of cloned human beings rightly alarms an 
overwhelming majority of Americans. Some 90 percent oppose human 
cloning, according to a recent Time/CNN poll. The National Bioethics 
Advisory Commission unanimously concluded that ``Any attempt to clone a 
child is uncertain in its outcome, is unacceptably dangerous to the 
fetus and, therefore, morally unacceptable.'' That is why this bill 
prohibits all human cloning.
  A partial ban would allow for stockpiles of cloned human embryos to 
be produced, bought and sold without restrictions. Implantation of 
cloned embryos, a relatively easy procedure, would inevitably take 
place. Once cloned embryos are produced and available in laboratories, 
it is impossible to control what is done with them, so a partial ban is 
simply unenforceable.
  It has been argued that this bill would have a negative impact on 
scientific research, but this assertion is unsupported, both by the 
language in the bill and by the testimony received by the Subcommittee 
on Crime during two hearings. The language in the bill allows for 
research in the use of nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques 
used to produce molecules, DNA, cells, tissues, organs, plants or 
animal. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, there is no language in the bill that 
would interfere with the use of in vitro fertilization, the 
administration of fertility-enhancing drugs, or the use of other 
medical procedures to assist a woman from becoming or remaining 
pregnant.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and 
oppose the substitute.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield such time as she may 
consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), a member of 
the committee.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, this bill bans human cloning. Almost all of 
us agree with that. The problem is, the bill does much more. It makes 
cutting-edge science a crime. It would make somatic cell nuclear 
transfer a felony.
  An egg is stripped of its 23 chromosomes, 46 chromosomes are taken 
from the cell, say, of a piece of skin, and inserted into the egg. In 2 
weeks, there is a clump of cells, undifferentiated, without organs, 
internal structures, nerves. Each of these cells may grow into any kind 
of cell, to cure cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, even spinal cord 
injuries. Use of one's own DNA for the curing cells avoids the danger 
of rejection.
  Just last week, as reported at the annual meeting at the Society for 
Neuroscience in New Orleans, stem cells derived from somatic nuclear 
transfer technology were used with primates, paralyzed monkeys. 
Astonishingly, the monkeys were able to regain some movement. For 
paraplegics, this is a bright ray of hope.
  Since when did outlawing research to cure awful diseases become the 
morally correct position? I believe that scientific research to save 
lives and ease suffering is highly moral and ethical and right. Some 
disagree and oppose this science. Well, they have the right to 
disagree, but nobody will force them to accept the cures that science 
may yield. If your religious beliefs will not let you accept a cure for 
your child's cancer, so be it. But do not expect the rest of America to 
let their loved ones suffer without cure.
  Our job in Congress is not to pick the most restrictive religious 
view of science and then impose that view upon Federal law. We live in 
a Democracy, not a Theocracy.

[[Page 15203]]

  Vote for the amendment that will save stem cell research and then we 
can all vote for a bill that bans cloning humans, and only that.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
distinguished gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).
  Ms. HART. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Weldon-Stupak bill.
  Simply put, cloning another human being, especially for the purpose 
of conducting experiments on the tiniest form of human being, is wrong. 
It is clear that it violates a principle that I think we all accept of 
human individuality and human dignity. That is why it is imperative 
that all of us support this bill. It is a responsible and reasoned 
proposal, and it will ensure that we maintain our strong ethical 
principles. We must have ethical principles to guide scientific 
research and inquiry.
  No one who supports this bill suggests that we stop scientific 
research. In fact, cloning has been used and should continue to be used 
to produce tissues. It should not, however, be used to produce human 
beings.
  If we do not draw a clear line now, when will we do so? There are so 
many very serious questions that human cloning raises, questions about 
conducting experiments on a human being bred essentially for that 
purpose; questions about the evils of social and genetic engineering; 
questions about the rights and liberties of living beings, of human 
beings.
  What about a being that is created in the laboratory and patented as 
a product? It is still a human being.
  There are too many serious questions that human cloning brings to the 
fore. They all have very serious consequences. The consequences that 
human cloning raises are all ethical questions. For us to move forward 
and allow science to be conducted without ethical and moral 
intervention is just crazy.
  We need nothing short of a full and clear ban on human cloning; 
otherwise, we are not promoting responsible scientific inquiry, we are 
promoting bad science fiction and making it a reality.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), a member of the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time.
  Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote against the underlying bill and against 
the alternative as well, because I do not believe that I know what I 
need to know before casting a vote of such profound consequence. I am 
not ready to decide the intricate and fundamental questions raised by 
this legislation on the basis of a single hearing held on a single 
afternoon at which the subcommittee heard only 5 minutes of testimony 
from only four witnesses, a hearing which many Members, myself 
included, were not even able to attend.
  Proponents of the bill have warned, and I speak to the underlying 
bill, that this is but the ``opening skirmish of a long battle against 
eugenics and the post-human future.'' They say that without this 
sweeping legislation, we will make inevitable the cloning of human 
beings, which I believe everyone in this Chamber deplores.
  Supporters of the substitute respond that the bill is far broader 
than it needs to be to achieve its objective, and that a total ban on 
human somatic cell nuclear transfer could close off avenues of inquiry 
that offer benign and potentially lifesaving benefits for humanity.

                              {time}  1515

  They may both be right, but both bills have significant deficiencies.
  The underlying bill raises the specter of subjecting researchers to 
substantial criminal penalties. It even goes so far as to create a kind 
of scientific exclusionary rule that would deny patients access to any 
lifesaving breakthroughs that may result from cloning research 
conducted outside of the United States. To continue the legal metaphor, 
it bars not only the tree but the fruit, as well. This seems to me to 
be of dubious morality.
  The substitute would establish an elaborate registration and 
licensing regime to be sure experimenters do not cross the line from 
embryonic research to the cloning of a human being. Not only would that 
system be impossible to police, but it fails to address the question of 
whether we should be producing cloned human embryos for purposes of 
research at all.
  I find this issue profoundly disturbing. I believe the issue deserves 
more than a cursory hearing and a 2-hour debate. It merits our 
sustained attention, and it requires a characteristic which does not 
come easily to people in our profession: humility and patience.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), who will show how bipartisan support is for 
this bill.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for 
yielding time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, the pro-life pro-choice debate has centered on a 
disagreement about the rights of the mother and whether her fetus has 
legally recognized rights. But in this debate on human cloning, there 
is no woman. The reproduction and gestation of the human embryo takes 
place in the factory or laboratory; it does not take place in a woman's 
uterus.
  Therefore, the concern for the protection of a woman's right does not 
arise in this debate on human cloning. There is no woman in this 
debate. There is no mother. There is no father. But there is a 
corporation functioning as creator, investor, manufacturer, and 
marketer of cloned human embryos. To the corporation, it is just 
another product with commercial value. This reduces the embryo to just 
another input.
  What we are discussing today in the Greenwood bill is the right of a 
corporation to create human embryos for the marketplace, and perhaps 
they will be used for research, perhaps they will be just for profit, 
all taking place in a private lab.
  But is this purely a private matter, this business of enucleating an 
egg and inserting DNA material from a donor cell, creating human 
embryos for research, for experimentation, for destruction, or perhaps, 
though not intended, for implantation? Is this just a matter between 
the clone and the corporation, or does society have a stake in this 
debate?
  We are not talking about replicating skin cells for grafting 
purposes. We are not talking about replicating liver cells for 
transplants. We are talking about cloning whole embryos. The industry 
recognizes there is commercial value to the human life potential of an 
embryo, but does a human embryo have only commercial value? That is the 
philosophical and legal question we are deciding here today.
  The Greenwood bill, which grants a superior cloning status to 
corporations, would have us believe that human embryos are products, 
the inputs of mechanization, like milling timber to create paper, or 
melting iron to create steel, or drilling oil to create gasoline. Are 
we ready to concede that human embryos are commercial products? Are we 
ready to license industry so it can proceed with the manufacturer of 
human embryos?
  If this debate is about banning human cloning, we should not consider 
bills which do the opposite. The Greenwood substitute to ban cloning is 
really a bill to begin to license corporations to begin cloning. Though 
the substitute claims to be a ban on reproductive cloning, it makes 
this nearly possible by creating a system for the manufacturer of 
cloned embryos. It does not have a system for Federal oversight of what 
is produced and does not allow for public oversight. The substitute 
allows companies to proceed with controversial cloning with nearly 
complete confidentiality.
  Cloning is not an issue for the profit-motivated biotech industry to 
charge ahead with; cloning is an issue for Congress to consider 
carefully, openly, and thoughtfully. That is why I support the Weldon 
bill. I urge that all others support it as well.