Bush Presses for Human Cloning Ban

By SCOTT LINDLAW
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush is pressing the Senate to approve
legislation that would outlaw the cloning of human beings for use in research
and treatment of diseases.

Bush long has opposed human cloning. When he announced his decision in August
to restrict but not forbid federal financing of so-called embryonic stem cell
research, he said: ``We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare
body parts or creating life for our convenience.''

On Wednesday, Bush was speaking to 175 doctors, scientists, lawmakers,
religious activists and disabled people to mobilize bipartisan support behind
a complete ban on cloning. Aides said Bush's speech would be ``reflective''
on the ethical issues that cloning poses.

The cloning legislation joins a growing pile of bills that Bush favors and
that have passed the Republican-controlled House but stalled in the
Democratic-controlled Senate.

In recent days Bush has stepped up his calls for action on an array of bills
pending in the Senate, including measures that would increase energy
conservation and exploration, grant him expanded powers in negotiating trade
pacts and help businesses get terrorism insurance.

Last July, the House passed a ban on all human cloning - the production of
embryos that are the genetic twin of a donor. Many in the Senate oppose using
cloning to create human beings, but support using the process to create
embryonic stem cells that may be used for research and the potential
treatment of many diseases.

The use of embryonic stem cells is controversial because extracting the cells
kills a living human embryo. Bush decided in August that federal funding
would be permitted only for stem cell cultures that then existed and which
were made from embryos that were to be discarded by fertility clinics.

The movement for a ban got a significant boost Tuesday when Sen. Bill Frist,
R-Tenn., said he would support the cloning ban legislation, which the Senate
is expected to debate in the weeks ahead. Though not a surprise, the
announcement from Frist, a heart-transplant surgeon, is important because his
views on medical topics are respected by many in Congress.

Creating a human embryo ``for reason of experimentation leads to destruction
of that embryo and to me that is morally unacceptable,'' Frist told reporters.

``I'm an advocate for embryonic stem cell research and stem cell research -
tremendous promise for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, for the various diseases,''
he said Wednesday on CBS' ``The Early Show.'' ``But that is not the cloning
of human embryos. I'm for cellular cloning, RNA cloning, DNA cloning, but not
for cloning of embryos that have to be destroyed''

Bush holds a similar view and welcomed Frist's support, the White House said.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., told an anti-cloning rally on Capitol Hill
Wednesday that a ban on human embryo cloning was ``clearly a winnable
issue.'' Standing before a stack of petitions with 400,000 signatures for a
cloning ban, Brownback said that ``cloning is wrong, period. Creating human
life to destroy it is wrong.''

The cloning debate gained impetus in November when a Massachusetts company,
Advanced Cell Technology, said it had cloned a human embryo for the first
time. The company wants to extract stem cells from cloned embryos that could
be used to grow healthy organs for patients.

Scientists also are trying to see whether adult stem cells can serve as
all-around repairmen in the body, thus avoiding killing embryos.

The public overwhelmingly opposes scientific experimentation on the cloning
of human beings, according to a new poll that also suggests public opinion is
mixed on stem cell research.

Nearly four out of five people opposed cloning, while one-third of those
polled were against federal funding of stem cell research, according to the
poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

The poll of 2,002 adults was taken Feb. 25-March 10 and had an error margin
of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

Also Wednesday, Bush was mending fences with Bill Simon, the California Republ
ican gubernatorial candidate whom the White House quietly opposed last fall.
Simon was getting the royal treatment from the Bush administration, also
meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney and a battery of Cabinet officials.

Simon was a reminder of how the unusual White House strategy of injecting
itself into primaries can backfire: Bush associates urged Simon to step aside
in favor of the White House's favored candidate, former Los Angeles Mayor
Richard Riordan.

But Riordan lost the primary to Simon last month, leaving the White House in
the awkward position of embracing a candidate it opposed.

Bush immediately called Simon after the primary, and has pledged to help him
raise money for the campaign against the incumbent governor, Democrat Gray
Davis. The White House is ``totally committed'' to getting Simon elected
governor, Simon spokesman Jeff Flint said.

Simon was using a political appeal to renew his plea for presidential help -
that if he can oust Davis, it will greatly help Bush's own re-election
prospects in 2004.

Bush lost California by 13 percentage points to Al Gore in 2000.


   04/10/02 11:34 EDT

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn