[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3758]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH AND THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Madam Speaker, the demise of once-renowned South Korean 
embryonic stem cell researcher, Hwang Woo-Suk, has been well 
publicized. Once the darling of the research community, Dr. Hwang has 
since been disgraced, his research exposed as fraudulent, his 
methodologies shown to be unethical.
  The fact that Dr. Hwang fabricated much of his research made big 
headlines. What was less noted, though, was that he coerced female 
members of his research team to donate their eggs for experimentation. 
This brought attention to a relatively unknown fact about embryo 
research.
  It requires an enormous amount of human eggs, and the likelihood of 
women being exploited is great. This issue has brought together a 
coalition of pro-choice and pro-life women who are taking a stand 
against the exploitation of women by the biotech industry.
  They point out that the egg extraction techniques required for this 
research can lead to infertility and even death. They are right to take 
such a stand against such exploitation, and we ought to stand with 
them.

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