Congressman Andy Harris (R-MD) has reintroduced a true ban on human cloning to the U.S. Congress. H.R. 2164, Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2012, would ban human cloning all over the U.S. This is actually a remarkable bill. Why? Because most other “bans on human cloning” do nothing of the sort.
This cloning slight-of-hand works. Back in 2006, Missouri voted on and passed Amendment 2 that said it “banned human cloning.” It did not. It only banned the transfer of cloned embryos to a womb. The propaganda before the vote was so duplicitous that a group of scientists wrote an open letter to the people of Missouri to try and cut through the confusion. They concluded:
…the people of Missouri should know what they are actually voting on. Amendment 2 creates a constitutional right for researchers to engage in human cloning. Efforts to deny this are misleading and deceptive.
The legislation proposed to the U.S. Congress by Rep. Harris is a TRUE ban on human cloning. It bans all SCNT in humans. H.R. 2164 states:
(1) some individuals have announced that they will attempt to clone human beings using the technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer already used with limited success in sheep and other animals;…
(8) in order to be effective, a ban on human cloning must stop the cloning process at the beginning because–
(A) cloning would take place within the privacy of a doctor-patient relationship;
(B) the transfer of embryos to begin a pregnancy is a simple procedure; and
(C) any government effort to prevent the transfer of an existing embryo, or to prevent birth once the transfer has occurred, would raise substantial moral, legal, and practical issues, so that it will be nearly impossible to prevent attempts at ‘reproductive cloning’ once cloned human embryos are available in the laboratory;…
The bill goes on to define human cloning properly, as the creation of human embryos through asexual means, regardless of whether those embryos would be transferred to a woman or destroyed for research.
(read more)
This cloning slight-of-hand works. Back in 2006, Missouri voted on and passed Amendment 2 that said it “banned human cloning.” It did not. It only banned the transfer of cloned embryos to a womb. The propaganda before the vote was so duplicitous that a group of scientists wrote an open letter to the people of Missouri to try and cut through the confusion. They concluded:
…the people of Missouri should know what they are actually voting on. Amendment 2 creates a constitutional right for researchers to engage in human cloning. Efforts to deny this are misleading and deceptive.
The legislation proposed to the U.S. Congress by Rep. Harris is a TRUE ban on human cloning. It bans all SCNT in humans. H.R. 2164 states:
(1) some individuals have announced that they will attempt to clone human beings using the technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer already used with limited success in sheep and other animals;…
(8) in order to be effective, a ban on human cloning must stop the cloning process at the beginning because–
(A) cloning would take place within the privacy of a doctor-patient relationship;
(B) the transfer of embryos to begin a pregnancy is a simple procedure; and
(C) any government effort to prevent the transfer of an existing embryo, or to prevent birth once the transfer has occurred, would raise substantial moral, legal, and practical issues, so that it will be nearly impossible to prevent attempts at ‘reproductive cloning’ once cloned human embryos are available in the laboratory;…
The bill goes on to define human cloning properly, as the creation of human embryos through asexual means, regardless of whether those embryos would be transferred to a woman or destroyed for research.
(read more)
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