Congress to Vote This Summer on Killing Human Embryos

Congress may vote this summer on two issues relating to the protection of human embryos. Many members of Congress are under pressure from powerful special-interest groups, including the biotechnology industry, to allow the creation and killing of human embryos for research purposes. It is vital that lawmakers hear from constituents in opposition to the killing of human embryos.

Embryo-Destructive Stem Cell Research

Since 1995, a provision of the annual Health and Human Services (HHS) appropriations bill called the "Dickey Amendment" has prohibited federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death. . . ."

However, some researchers wish to obtain federal funds for research in which human embryos, created in infertility laboratories by the process of in vitro fertilization, would be killed to harvest their stem cells. Stem cells are cells that have the capacity to turn into various types of specialized tissue, such as nerve or muscle tissue, which may be useful in treating many diseases.

Therefore, sometime this summer when the House of Representatives considers the HHS appropriations bill for fiscal year 2002, anti-life forces will probably seek to prevent renewal of the Dickey Amendment. A close vote is expected in the House on this question.

In addition, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Congressman Jim McDermott (D-Wa.) have introduced anti-life legislation (S. 723, H.R. 2059) that would actually require federal funding of embryo- destructive stem cell research.
Thus, it is important for lawmakers to hear from constituents who support extension of the current ban on federal funding of embryo-destructive research. In a national poll conducted in early June by International Communications Research, the public opposed federal funding of stem cell research in which "live embryos would be destroyed in their first week of development," by a margin of 70% to 24%.

Fortunately, stem cells for medical research may be obtained without killing human embryos. Researchers have obtained stem cells from adult fat, blood, and bone marrow, and also from umbilical cords and placentas. In the early June poll, the public supported the funding of these ethical alternatives to embryo-killing research, 67% to 18%.

On June 7, Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced The Responsible Stem Cell Research Act (H.R. 2096), to authorize expanded federal funding of research using stem cells from these sources.

Human Cloning

Human cloning is a proposed process in which genetic material from one person would be artificially transferred into a human or animal egg cell, thereby beginning the life of a new human individual who has only one parent and who is genetically identical to that parent.

It has been proposed to create human life through cloning for the purpose of destructive experiments on those human beings, resulting in their deaths, and for the purpose of scavenging the bodies of those human beings to obtain tissues and organs, resulting in their deaths.

NRLC believes each human life at every stage of biological development is deserving of respect and protection, regardless of the circumstances under which that human life was created.

The Human Cloning Prohibition Act (H.R. 1644, S. 790), authored by Senator Sam Brownback (R-Ks.) and Congressman Dave Weldon (R- Fl.), would prohibit the use of cloning to create any human beings, including human embryos. NRLC supports this bill, on which the House of Representatives may vote this summer.

However, the powerful and well-funded Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) opposes this legislation, because they wish to allow biotech corporations to use cloning to mass produce human embryos, who would then be killed to obtain their stem cells and for other research purposes.

Opponents of the Brownback-Weldon bill intend to offer substitute bills that would enact a "clone-and-kill" policy. These clone-and-kill bills would permit the use of cloning to create human embryos to be used in medical research, but would prohibit the implantation of any such embryo in a woman's womb. Thus, such a bill amounts to a federal legal mandate that every cloned human embryo must be killed. NRLC strongly opposes such clone- and-kill legislation.

In early June, International Communications Research conducted a national poll which asked, "Should scientists be allowed to use human cloning to create a supply of human embryos to be destroyed in medical research?" By a margin of 86% to 10%, adult respondents said "no."

In view of public opinion, then, it is not surprising that advocates of the clone-and-kill bills are using misleading language to persuade lawmakers to support these bills - - for example, by saying that they would "ban cloning of human beings" or "ban reproductive cloning."

In reality, these bills would do neither, because once a human embryo has been created, "reproduction" has occurred, and a member of the species homo sapiens - - a human being - - exists. The clone-and-kill bills would allow researchers to "reproduce" any number of human beings - - just as long as every one of them is killed prior to implantation in a woman's womb.

Supporters of the clone-and-kill substitute measures also say that they would allow cloning only for "therapeutic" purposes. But this language merely cloaks an ugly reality: the bill would allow human embryos to be specially created, through the cloning process, for no purpose other than lethal medical experimentation.