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LOUISIANA: Senate Panel Revives Ban On Therapeutic Cloning By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press Writer 5/19/2004 BATON ROUGE, La. -- Opponents of therapeutic cloning of human cells revived their effort to outlaw the practice Tuesday, winning Senate committee approval of their bill. They still face long odds, however. The full Senate already has refused once to outlaw therapeutic cloning, as has the full House. Still, the Senate Judiciary A Committee vote provided them with new hope, voting 5-1 to advance Sen. Art Lentini's measure, effectively forcing a second Senate vote on the matter. Tuesday's vote came despite testimony from victims of Parkinson's disease and diabetes. They included diabetic Madison Martin, age 3, who sat in her mother's lap and told committee members that diabetes is "a nasty disease." Her mother Lisa all but begged the committee not to ban the development of cloned cells that could be used to produce stem cells - which scientists say can be manipulated and coaxed to grow into heart, brain or nerve cells and used to treat any number of ailments. Witnesses also included medical experts, including Parkinson's researcher Dr. Jay Rao of LSU, and members of various clergy, on hand to counter support for Lentini's bill by Roman Catholic officials and conservative religious groups. Centering on complex issues of science and morality, the debate, which has been raging for weeks at the Legislature, mirrors one going on in other states and in Congress. It involves the cloning of a human by placing a donor's genetic material, often taken from the skin, into a human egg cell from which genetic material has been removed. The result is a cloned embryo that could supposedly be implanted into a woman's womb and grown into a human being or used to develop and harvest stem cells. Backers of Lentini's bill argue a cloned cell is as human as an embryonic cell created by the uniting of sperm and egg. Using it to grow and harvest stem cells means destroying the cloned cell and is therefore immoral they say. On the other side are backers of Senate President Don Hines' bill, approved Monday in the Senate and now awaiting House action. Hines' bill would outlaw implantation of a cloned cell to develop a human being, but it would allow therapeutic cloning. Its supporters argue that a cloned cell has no chance of ever becoming a human being unless it is chemically or electrically stimulated and implanted in a womb. It would be immoral, they argue, to deny badly ill people the possible therapeutic benefits of stem cells from cloned cells. Tuesday's vote ensures that an intense lobbying effort by both sides will continue. Hines, a physician and a Democrat from Bunkie, won approval of his bill 24-13 on Monday night. Lentini tried to persuade the Senate to add an amendment banning therapeutic cloning but was rebuffed when 18 senators voted for it but 19 voted against. Earlier this month, the full House voted to strip a therapeutic cloning ban from a bill by Rep. Gary Beard, R-Baton Rouge. Beard then withdrew his bill from debate rather than let it pass without the ban. --- On the Net: Hines' bill is filed as Senate Bill 74; Lentini's bill has been heavily rewritten and will be assigned a new number. Bills can be viewed at the legislative Web site: http://www.legis.state.la.us SOURCE: Sarasota Herald-Tribune, FL http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040518/APN/405181014 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn