February 27, 2003

The House has finally passed a bill banning human cloning. HR 534 is the more restrictive of the two competing bills, but renders smaller fines. It may sound like the abortion issue, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Even for those who don't oppose abortion, this seems a no-brainer -- no-one liked Dr. Frankenstein. The flip side is that this also prohibits the cloning of stem cells, which promise to revolutionize medicine. It's complicated.

House Passes Human Cloning Ban

HR 534 or Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003 bans all forms of cloning -- even creating clusters of cells or an embryo for stem cell research. You don't even have to be successful -- just trying to create a clone would be a felony. What if another country breaks the technology first? Don't even think about it. The 10 year / $1M fine applies to the import and export of clone material or anything derived from clone material. It passed through the House, 241 to 155. Kudos to the Clerk of the House for being Johnny-on-the-spot with the roll call.

The debate is this: if you leave cloned cells alone, they die. If you put them in a womb, they grow into a baby. Even if they don't grow into babies, they can be used in stem cell research, which promises to give us an unprecedented ability to mess with the human body -- like grow new organs. Interestingly, this isn't a subphylum of the abortion issue. You'll find abortion opponents for theraputic cloning, and vice versa.

HR 801, an alternative bill, would prohibit only the baby-making part, but ups the fines to $10 million.


-- posted by Gunnar at February 27, 2003 06:29 PM - TrackBack
Comments
Post a comment