Human Cloning Legalization Bill Introduced by Senators Feinstein and Hatch
Once again it is "pull the wool over their eyes" time in the United States Senate. My senator, Diane Feinstein (D-CA), and Utah's Orin Hatch (R-UT) have introduced the dishonestly named "Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act of 2007" (S. 812).
Is it any wonder that the American people have such little respect for the legislative process? The bill purports to outlaw human cloning. Instead, it would explicitly legalize human somatic cell nuclear transfer--which is the actual act of cloning, a.k.a., asexual reproduction. So how do the senators justify calling their cloning legalization bill a cloning "ban?" Why, through the tried and true method, of course: They simply Redefine the term cloning into a scientifically inaccurate political term.
Here is how "human cloning" is defined in S. 812:
The term `human cloning' means implanting or attempting to implant the product of nuclear transplantation into a uterus or the functional equivalent of a uterus.But implantation is no more an act of cloning then is the implanting of an embryo created via IVF an act of fertilization. This bill is beyond disingenuous: It is dishonest.
Labels: Legalizing Human Cloning.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 12:41 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
wow, is it like a federal version of Missouri's A2? In this case, it doesn't even have a good side, since it only prohibits implantation of the product of nuclear transfer, which is a small subset of unethical experimental methods of manufacturing children, whereas the missouri bill used a blanket prohibition of implanting any embryos that are not the natural joining of a man and a woman's sperm and egg.
And the fact that they changed the language has to be seen as alarming. Why else would they do it unless they realized that they had to keep the door open for stem cell derived artificial gametes, enhanced and fiddled with at the gamete stage. It's not even clear if synthesizing an entire genome and inserting it in a denucleated egg would count as "nuclear transplantation", since the transferred-in genome was never in a nucleus before but was freshly manufactured.
I haven't read the bill yet, maybe it explains.
One other point: if we ban non egg and sperm conception first, as part of the civil union compromise I am trying to promote, then the stem cell people won't have any so-called cloning ban to offer us. They wouldn't be able to package this deal as if it were a cloning ban if we banned all non egg and sperm conception like the PCBE recommended in 2004. Why didn't we? Oh yeah, because people wanted to hold out for a full ban on ESCR.
Of course, this bill wouldn't stop us from enacting the egg and sperm law also.
As I feared, "nuclear transplantation" is defined in the most narrow sense possible, leaving it perfectly legal to implant genetically engineered DNA or completely synthesized DNA. The only thing it bans is straight up transfer of a somatic cell's nucleus into an egg cell, which virtually no one is interested in doing anyhow. It doesn't ban transferring in a modified nucleus, or creating an embryo from two eggs or two sperm or stem-cell dervived gametes. It bans nothing that anyone actually wants to do.
Your link to the text of the bill does not work. Here is a better one.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c110:./temp/~c110iFbaxQ
Did you notice that they also redefined fertilization?
(B) FERTILIZATION- The term `fertilization' means the fusion of an oocyte containing a haploid nucleus with a male gamete (sperm cell).
This is how Sen. Hatch on his site actually say:
"Allow this stem cell research only
to take place on unfertilized eggs. "
This from an intrepid SHS reader: "I thought there was something interesting about the Hatch-Feinstein cloning bill. It is my understanding that the bill would make it illegal to send the products of SCNT in humans to a country that has a ban on human cloning. Why would that even be in there if SCNT wasn't really cloning? If the product of SCNT isn't a human clone (like they say) why would there need to be any legislation to prevent it being sent to a country that bans human cloning? Their own bill contradicts itself. No surprise there."
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home