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Posted on 06/14/2002 7:37:46 AM PDT by Romulus
The US Senate is scheduled to vote on human cloning Tuesday, June 18.
IMMEDIATE ACTION IS NEEDED.
Americans overwhelmingly oppose human cloning. Yet because all too many Americans feel the cloning issue is too complicated and since they do not have a medical background, they are leaving the decisions up to medical professionals, researchers, and the U.S. Congress.
Now is the time for all Americans to engage in this issue. Those that support human cloning are trying to convince the Congress, and even the American public, that there are different types of human cloning based on what the researcher intends to do with the clone. Here's what you need to know about the cloning debate.
Legislation
S. 1899 Brownback/Landrieu Human Cloning Prohibition Act - This bill bans any attempt at producing a human embryo by cloning (by "reproductive" and so-called "therapeutic.") However, the legislation explicitly allows certain kinds of cloning - nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques that produce molecules, DNA, cells other than human embryos, tissues, organs, plants, or animals other than humans.
S. 2439 Specter/Kennedy/Feinstein "clone and kill" bill - This bill is deceptively titled the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2002, but the friendly title masks a horrifying piece of legislation. S. 2439 would prohibit "reproductive" cloning but permit "therapeutic" cloning for research purposes, and would require all cloned human embryos to be killed once they have served their research purpose.
WHAT IS CLONING?
A clone is:
1) An exact replica of a DNA molecule, cell, tissue, organ, or entire plant or animal.
2) An organism that has the same nuclear genome as another organism
"Reproductive" cloning - according to pro-cloning legislation, the transfer of cloned human embryos into environments where they might survive to a later stage. In other words, "reproductive" cloning is creating a baby from scratch outside the womb.
"Therapeutic" cloning - experimental cloning in which embryos are created to be destroyed, in order to conduct research, the results of which are dubious at best.
Cloning has occurred as soon as a new organism is created that genetically replicates an existing organism - that is, as soon as the procedure has created a new embryo. To ban cloning is to ban such embryo creation - period.
Most, if not all Americans, including a majority of the US House of Representatives (who passed a complete human cloning ban similar to S. 1899 in July of 2001) agree that "reproductive" cloning is repugnant.
"Mad scientists" want to make the American people think that "therapeutic" cloning is an acceptable form of medical research. However, there is no scientific distinction between "therapeutic" and "reproductive" cloning. The only difference is the intent of the researcher. The intention of "therapeutic" cloning is to create human embryos for the purpose of medical experimentation and, ultimately, to kill them.
The following terms have been invented to confuse the American people about human cloning. Cloning advocates have created several misleading terms to hide the fact that 'cloning is cloning,' including:
· therapeutic cloning (non-reproductive,)
· somatic cell nuclear transfer,
· nuclear transplantation,
· DNA-regenerative medicine
Any legitimate ban needs to prohibit all cloning of humans - either "reproductive" or so-called "therapeutic." The cloning of a human embryo always produces a new human being, and distinctions between "reproductive" and "therapeutic" cloning are meaningless.
IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED:
Please contact both your Senators and urge them to support S. 1899, the Brownback/Landrieu Human Cloning Prohibition Act. S. 1899 is the only bill that completely bans human embryo cloning. Key Senators who have yet to make a decision are:
Hutchison (R-TX)
Campbell(R-CO)
Stevens (R-AK)
Collins (R-ME)
Thompson (R-TN)
Warner(R-VA)
Cochran (R-MS)
Byrd (D-WV)
Bayh (D-IN)
Cleland (D-GA)
Lincoln(D-AR)
Biden (D-DE)
Dayton (D-MN)
Conrad (D-ND)
Chafee (D-RI)
Hollings (D-SC)
It is especially important that you contact both your Senators, in their district and Washington, DC offices, via phone and email. The Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.
The genie is out of the bottle. Cloning will happen. Deal with it.
--Boris
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