Dorgan-Johnson Bill Would Allow Implant-and-Abort Cloning

On April 9, 2002, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) introduced S. 2076, which he named the "Human Cloning Prohibition Act."

Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Mark Dayton (D-Mn.) soon joined as cosponsors.

Senator Dorgan and his staff have described the bill to some journalists as a "common ground" measure that incorporates what both sides in the cloning debate agree on. Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman promoted the bill as a sensible consensus measure in early May.

The reality is far different. The title aside, Dorgan's bill is even worse than the Specter-Feinstein bill (S. 2439) and the other "clone and kill" bills pending in the Senate [see main story, page 1].

In an April 29 letter to Senator Tim Johnson, NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson noted that S. 2076, like other "clone and kill" bills, would permit human embryos to be cloned and killed for research. But in addition, the wording of S. 2076 also "would permit cloned human embryos to be implanted in uteruses (human or other), grown to various stages of development (even, for example, to the advanced stage of pregnancy at which partial-birth abortions are performed), and then aborted to provide developed organs, tissues, or cells for research or transplantation," he wrote.

Such practices would be permissible under S. 2076 because the bill bans implanting cloned human embryos in human or animal uteruses only if this is done "for the purpose of creating a cloned human being." A definition of the term "human being" is conspicuously absent from the bill. On April 19, Senator Johnson wrote, "I do not, however, believe that the fetus (regardless of term) ought to be considered by the law as a separate human being from the mother." If a "fetus" is not a "human being" ("regardless of term"), then S. 2076 would allow a cloned human embryo to be implanted in a human or animal womb and grown for months--even to the final stages of pregnancy--before being killed to obtain tissues or organs.

As NRLC's Douglas Johnson noted in the letter to Senator Johnson, "Nor is it farfetched to believe that such things will be done, if the law allows it. Already, researchers have implanted a cloned cow embryo, grown that clone to the fetal stage, and then killed the clone to obtain developed kidney tissue. Moreover, in a recent experiment that was widely reported in the press as the first real breakthrough in 'therapeutic cloning' in animals, the researchers found it necessary to develop a cloned mouse to the newborn stage before its stem cells were sufficiently developed to cure the original mouse's immune system defect."

In independent analysis, attorneys at the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) wrote that S. 2076 "is the most permissive piece of human cloning legislation introduced in the Senate.... [T]he legislation allows an implanted cloned embryo to develop inside a woman's uterus for an unspecified period of time.... [T]the legislation gives government approval and support to an industry in which human clones gestate for several months in surrogate mothers to be followed by voluntary abortion of such fetuses for use in research."

At NRL News deadline on May 7, neither Senator Dorgan nor Johnson had responded to the NRLC or ICTA analyses of how S. 2076 would permit growing cloned humans for tissue-harvesting purposes.

NRLC's letter to Senator Johnson is posted at the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/Index.html.