FC: Congress hears more demands to criminalize human cloning

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/081/nation/Coalition_urges_a_ban_on_all_human_cloning+.shtml

   Coalition urges a ban on all human cloning
   
   By Mary Leonard, Globe Staff, 3/22/2002
   
   WASHINGTON - Congress is facing mounting calls from some unexpected
   quarters to halt medical research involving human cloning.
   
   Since the US House approved a ban on both reproductive and therapeutic
   cloning last summer, the dynamic in the nation's capital has changed
   from one that pitted religious conservatives and antiabortion groups
   against scientists, biotechnology firms, and patient advocates. Now
   some environmentalists, feminists, and other activists are joining
   social conservatives in calling on lawmakers to put the laboratory
   work on hold.
   
   A broad coalition of biologists, ethicists, public-health advocates,
   abortion proponents, and human-rights activists signed a letter to
   leaders of the US Senate this week, urging a total ban on cloning to
   make babies and an indefinite moratorium on the creation of cloned
   embryos for use in medical research.
   
   ''Human cloning could be a gateway to a frightening new kind of
   eugenics, where discrimination and inequality are permanently written
   into our genetic code,'' said Marcy Darnovsky, a spokeswoman for the
   Center for Genetics and Society, a group based in Oakland, Calif.,
   that organized the 100 signers and produced the letter.
   
   In the Senate, lobbying is intense on the cloning issue. Senate
   majority leader Thomas A. Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, has
   indicated that he will schedule a debate on cloning legislation in
   April or May.
   
   One bill - sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas -
   would ban and criminalize all human cloning. Senators Edward M.
   Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of
   California, have introduced a separate measure banning reproductive
   cloning but allowing biomedical research with cloned embryos.

   [...]



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