Massachusetts Set to Endorse Human Cloning, Embryo Research
By Daniel Avila

Moving at jet speed, the Massachusetts state legislature has approved legislation endorsing cloning and embryo research. Although Governor Mitt Romney has indicated that he will veto any bill that includes cloning, he lacks enough votes to prevent an override. At the time of this writing, a conference committee is ironing out technical differences between separate bills passed in the Senate and House before sending a final bill to the Governor's desk.

Last year, Harvard University scientists announced its decision to begin cloning experiments involving the creation and destruction of human embryos to harvest embryonic stem cells.

The major media in the state, including the Boston Globe (no surprise) and the formerly more responsible Boston Herald, editorialized in favor of Harvard's move. State Senate and House leaders promised to fast-track legislation removing key provisions of a state law barring embryo research.

Scientists and representatives of groups of patients with various diseases started making the talk-show rounds and contacting their legislators, making emotional appeals to let science help the suffering.

Defenders of human life did not sit back. The Catholic Bishops in the state sponsored a major media blitz, featuring commercials and print ads.

The campaign stressed the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells (which raise no moral objections). The ads also made clear that just because a cloned human embryo is not implanted in the womb does not change the fact that this new human being was created by cloning in the first place.

At a hearing of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies in February, pro-lifers brought in an impressive array of scientists and other witnesses to testify. The line-up included individuals with Parkinson's disease and other ailments who gave moving presentations. They told the committee that despite their own difficult circumstances they would reject therapies developed at the expense of another human's life.

Patricia Payne told committee members, "As you can see, I am suffering immensely from my Parkinson's, and from the bone disintegration around my lower spine, which floods my whole body with constant pain. How I want to relieve my suffering, especially of the body which I carefully conditioned for years as a classical dancer."

But, she said, "my suffering isn't the real issue!" The real issue "is what we are being asked to do in the hope of relieving our suffering. In embryonic stem cell research, an embryonic human being is sacrificed in order to get a hold of embryonic stem cells. I don't want to see cures, even a cure for my terrible disease, to be obtained by destroying a fellow human being at their earliest and most vulnerable stage of their existence."

(See "Today's News & Views" for February 18, at www.nrlc.org.)

Grassroots efforts generated calls and e-mails urging legislators at the very least to slow down when deliberating on such a complex and critical issue. Even though legislators were in the midst of a major reorganization of committees, involving a mass reshuffling to new offices, the leadership insisted on pushing forward.

A bill sailed out of committee just weeks after being heard (unusual in Massachusetts) and reached the Senate floor March 30 and the House floor March 31. The Senate session served mainly as a rally for unrestricted research with only one legislator rising to say a few words against cloning to counterbalance the several who lauded the bill as a historic achievement.

The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 36-3.

When the House took up the issue the following day, there was some hope that enough legislators could be persuaded to oppose the bill by a margin sufficiently large enough to sustain a gubernatorial veto. The Speaker of the House, Democrat Sal DiMasi, had promised not to make the cloning vote "a leadership" issue, thus freeing legislators to vote their conscience. House members of a pro-life caucus believed that, while the bill would pass, they had enough votes to uphold the Governor's veto.

Unlike in the Senate, numerous representatives rose during the debate to oppose cloning and embryo research. The eloquent speeches, televised across the state, unmasked the misleading claims of the bill's proponents and raised substantial questions about the impact of cloning on women.

Rep. Elizabeth Poirier told the membership that researchers would need "massive quantities" of women's eggs for cloning to produce enough embryos with embryonic stem cells "to treat just one of the many diseases for which proponents have promised cures." She and others warned that the bill would create a huge market for eggs that will pressure low-income women to undergo the painful and risky process of super-ovulation.

The debate was having an impact. The leadership suddenly shifted gears and began pressuring lawmakers to back the bill.

In the end, the vote was 117 to 37. The opposing votes were 17 votes shy of the one-third needed to sustain a veto. Opponents of cloning and embryo research will work to convince those legislators who have pro-life records to switch their vote when it comes time to consider a veto.

Gov. Romney will have 10 days after a bill reaches his desk to act. Observers predict that a vote on the veto will take place sometime in the middle of April.

Dan Avila is the associate director for policy and research of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the public policy office for the Catholic Bishops in the state.