Tuesday, December 4, 2001
Senate refuses to impose moratorium on cloning
Measure fails in part due to link with drilling bill
New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON — Despite entreaties from President Bush to
ban any type of human cloning, either for reproduction or
for research, the Senate on Monday refused to take up a
Republican measure to impose a six-month moratorium on the
technology.
The measure was rushed to the Senate floor in response
to an announcement last week by a Massachusetts
biotechnology company that it had created the first cloned
human embryos, not to make babies but to develop tissues for
treating disease. All the embryos died, but the experiment
revived the cloning controversy, which had been dormant
since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The bill failed overwhelmingly on a procedural motion,
in part because it was bundled with another contentious but
unrelated measure that would have allowed oil drilling in
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Republican leaders had
hoped to force a vote on the issues by packaging them into
an amendment to an unrelated bill governing retirement
benefits for railroad workers.
The strategy failed when the maneuvering became so
complicated that even its supporters ended up voting against
it for various reasons. Of 95 senators present, 94 voted to
prevent the oil drilling and cloning bills from coming up
for a vote. The lone exception was Sen. George Allen, R-Va.
The Republican leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi,
vowed during the debate to bring both bills up again. "These
issues are not going to go away," he warned.
It now appears unlikely that the Senate will enact
cloning legislation this year. But the issue is expected to
come up next year, and already the Senate has scheduled
hearings on cloning. The first is set for Tuesday; Mike
West, president of Advanced Cell Technology, the
Massachusetts biotechnology company that conducted the
recent cloning experiment, is scheduled to be the lead
witness.
The cloning bill would have put into place, for six
months, legislation identical with a bill adopted by the
House of Representatives in July. The House measure, which
Bush supports, would ban cloning for either reproduction or
research, and would outlaw the sale of treatments developed
from cloning.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., the Senate's leading
opponent of cloning, argued that the moratorium should be
put in place while the Senate debated a permanent ban. He
called it "a very modest step."
There is widespread agreement among lawmakers that
human cloning — the making of babies that are genetic
replicas of adults — is immoral and should be outlawed. But
the question of cloning for research, also called
therapeutic cloning, is for many lawmakers more complicated.
At the same time, the issue is tangled with another
controversy, that of stem-cell research. Stem cells are
primordial cells that can grow into any type of tissue in
the body, and scientists say they hold great promise for
treating and curing disease. But in order to realize the
full promise of stem cells, researchers will have to create
cells that will be compatible with patients' own immune
systems. One way to do this, experts say, is through
therapeutic cloning.
"I don't see any problem in banning human cloning,"
said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. "I think we'd get 100-to-0
on that one." But, she added, "Why would we want to stop and
derail stem-cell research?"
Brownback urged his colleagues not to mix cloning with
stem-cell research. "Some have said this is about stem
cells," Brownback said. "It's not about stem cells. This is
about cloning. This is about taking a human individual and
creating him by a cloned technology similar to that used to
create Dolly the sheep."
Brownback's bill draws support from across the
political spectrum, including environmental groups, abortion
opponents, women's advocates and Christian fundamentalists.
But advocates for patients, as well as the biotechnology
industry, are strongly in support of therapeutic cloning,
and therefore oppose the Brownback legislation.
Daniel Perry, executive director of the Alliance for
Aging Research, a patients' group, said Monday that the bill
"would set a very dangerous precedent of bringing the police
powers of the federal government into the laboratories." He
added, "We need a lot fuller debate on this."
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