FROM:
  The Associated Press
 April 11, 2002, Thursday, BC cycle
 2:00 AM Eastern Time

HEADLINE: Senate group will fight Bush's attempt to completely ban human
cloning
research
BYLINE: By SONYA ROSS, Associated Press Writer

   Aligning themselves with 40 Nobel laureates, senators who support
human
cloning research say they will not let President Bush's efforts to impose
a
cloning ban jeopardize the promise such research holds for curing
disease.

   Bush on Wednesday pressed the Senate for such a ban, saying that
cloning
humans in and of itself is unconscionable, and that even for research
purposes
it could set the nation on a path "into a world we could live to regret."

   The president expressed his support for a ban proposed by Sens. Sam
Brownback, R-Kan., and Mary Landrieu, D-La.

   "Life is a creation, not a commodity," Bush said.

   But the president's appeal did little to slow efforts by a handful of
senators to craft a compromise that would ban the cloning of human beings
but
leave room for embryo research. One author, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,
said
Wednesday there was "a significant group in the Senate determined to
defeat" an
outright ban.

   "If the millions of people who suffer from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's
and
heart disease and cancer - and every other known malady - realize that
potential
cures are going to be impeded, they'll let their senators know a thing or
two,"
Specter said. "There's going to be a real fight on the Senate floor."

   Bush countered with a veiled warning: "It would be a mistake for the
U.S.
Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber."

   At issue is the production of embryos that are genetically identical
to a
donor human being. Bush voiced his opposition frequently last year, and
in
August he restricted federally financed stem cell research to 64 existing
stem
cell lines taken from embryos discarded by fertility clinics.

   The House passed a ban on all human cloning in July but the Senate has
not
acted on it. Many senators object to the idea of cloning humans, but are
not
averse to cloning embryos for research that could cure disease.

   Brownback told an anti-cloning rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that
the
ban was "clearly a winnable issue." Standing before a stack of petitions
with
400,000 signatures, he said, "Cloning is wrong, period. Creating human
life to
destroy it is wrong."

   Specter, along with Sens. Edward Kennedy, Tom Harkin and Dianne
Feinstein,
proposed allowing "nuclear transplantation" research on illnesses such as
cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

   "We must not let the misplaced fears of today deny patients the cures
of
tomorrow," said Kennedy, D-Mass. "Congress was right to place medicine
over
ideology in the past, and we should do the same again."

   Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., urged lawmakers to heed a
call
from 40 Nobel laureates who support research cloning, and he said it is
possible
to bar ethically repugnant uses of cloned tissue without blocking the
research.

   "The president wants to ban it all, and I think he's wrong," Daschle
said.
"And I think the American people are on our side on this issue."

   The Nobel winners, including pioneers in cancer research and study of
other
life-threatening diseases, said the Brownback proposal, if passed, would
have "a
chilling effect on all scientific research in the United States." They
called
for legislation that would set criminal and civil penalties for creating
a
cloned human being.

   "The cloning of a human being should be prohibited. Nuclear
transplantation
technology, on the other hand, is meant to produce stem cells, not
babies," said
Paul Berg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1980.

   But for many senators, the matter was less scientific than personal.
For
example, Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., a moderate who has backed Bush on other
high-stakes legislation, said he supports the Specter option because his
son has
juvenile diabetes and his late mother suffered from Alzheimer's.

   Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he supports the Brownback ban - an
endorsement
the White House viewed as key, because Frist is a heart-transplant
surgeon whose
views on medical topics are respected by his peers.

   "Does the promise of human cloning embryo experiments ... justify what
is
required today to conduct those experiments - and that is the purposeful
creation of human embryos for experimentation and destruction? The answer
to
that question to me is no," Frist said.

   Bush called the prospects of successful research from clones "highly
speculative," and said he fears nightmare scenarios in which embryos are
created
so they can be plundered for body parts, so that parents can have
custom-ordered
children or so that women's eggs can be sold at high prices.
   "Once cloned embryos were available, implantation would take place,"
Bush
said. "Even the tightest regulations and strict policing would not
prevent or
detect the birth of cloned babies."

   Michael West, president and CEO of Worcester, Mass.-based Advanced
Cell
Technology, disputed that point. His company announced in November that
it had
cloned a six-cell human embryo for the purpose of culling stem cells.

   "I'm not proud to be an American when our leadership doesn't take the
time to
get the science right," West said.

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