For a Total Ban on Human Cloning
For a Total Ban on Human Cloning About the horror of creating human beings by cloning, there is wide agreement among the American people—and in Congress as well. But about the extent of the...
...The president will be aided in his task by the extraordinary testimony of many distinguished witnesses at last week's hearings...
...Consider the testimony of social philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago: The path down which we are headed unless we intervene now to stop human cloning is one that will deliver harm in abundance—and harm that can be stated clearly and decisively now—whereas any potential benefits are highly speculative and likely to be achievable through less drastic and damaging methods, in any case...
...I believe that this is a fundamentally flawed argument...
...And it is a radical form of parental despotism and child abuse...
...And now, in 2001, Congress faces the issue once again with a pair of competing bills...
...The second is a partial ban, prohibiting for ten years only so-called "reproductive" cloning, sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican James Greenwood and backed by the biotech lobby...
...On June 19 and June 20, a pair of hearings were held in the House of Representatives—one by a Judiciary subcommittee, chaired by Lamar Smith, and the other by an Energy and Commerce subcommittee, chaired by Michael Bili-rakis—on the Weldon-Stupak and Greenwood bills...
...There is a word for this so-called "genetic enhancement...
...Regulation never starts at an international level: Nation-states have to set up enforceable rules for their own societies before they can even begin to think about international rules...
...Only the final paralysis of government and the final paralysis of thought—which is to say, the inevitability of cloned human beings and the degradation of human liberty and dignity...
...It confuses identity...
...Bottum and William Kristol...
...They ranged across the political spectrum, and the moral seriousness and eloquence they brought to the halls of Congress was striking...
...To allow the creation of human clones would open the door to treating our children like manufactured objects...
...The hope of genetic fundamentalists is that we can increasingly control for that which is deemed desirable and eliminate that which is not...
...That word is eugenics...
...Congress' failure to try to stop human cloning—and by the most effective means—will in fact constitute its tacit approval...
...If we do not allow theology to inform our political decisions, if we do not allow philosophy, if we do not allow even politics, what remains...
...He will have to help educate the American public about cloning and work to move the ban through the House and Senate...
...These technologies have now brought us to a crucial fork in the road, where we are compelled to decide whether we wish to travel down the path that leads to the Brave New World...
...The House leadership intends to seek a vote on Weldon-Stupak as early as next month...
...It would pave the way for unprecedented new forms of eugenics...
...But perhaps the most ringing words came from Leon Kass of the University of Chicago: As has been obvious for some time, new biotechnologies are providing powers to intervene in human bodies and minds in ways that go beyond the traditional goals of healing the sick, to threaten fundamental changes in human nature and the meaning of our humanity...
...The always-thoughtful Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins added: Cloning represents the opening wedge for a series of future technologies that will permit us to alter the human germline and ultimately to design people genetically...
...The Wel-don-Stupak bill, he added, "is consistent with [Health and Human Services] secretary [Tommy] Thompson's and the president's views...
...It threatens individuality...
...THE WEEKLY STANDARD has editorialized before about the practical impossibility and moral fecklessness of trying to ban cloning only for certain purposes...
...If we can establish a general consensus among civilized nations that human cloning is unacceptable, we will then have a range of traditional diplomatic and economic instruments at our disposal to persuade or pressure countries outside that consensus to join...
...It would violate deeply and widely held values concerning human individuality and dignity...
...But about the extent of the necessary ban on cloning— whether it must outlaw all human cloning or only cloning that aims explicitly at bringing a cloned child to birth— controversy has arisen...
...Greenwood's bill permits and even encourages scientists to create cloned embryos, and then attempts to prevent them from inserting those embryos into a womb...
...There is, in truth, only one anti-cloning proposal before Congress: the Wel-don-Stupak bill...
...It was on this issue that Congress's attempt to prohibit cloning foundered in 1998...
...The first is a complete ban on the cloning of human beings, sponsored in the House by Florida Republican Dave Weldon and Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, and in the Senate by Kansas Republican Sam Brownback...
...This is a travesty...
...From a political perspective, the most important testimony at these hearings came from Claude Allen, the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, who presented, for the first time in an official setting, the Bush administration's position: strong support for a ban on "any and all attempts to clone a human being" and complete rejection of pseudo-compromises like the Greenwood bill...
...The [Boston Women's Health Book Collective] joins many other national and international organizations in calling for a universal ban on human reproductive cloning...
...It is therefore extremely important that Congress act legislatively at this point to establish the principle that our democratic political community is sovereign and has the power to control the pace and scope of such technological developments...
...The administration deserves credit for taking an unequivocal position against all human cloning, in the face of pressure from some in the biotech industry...
...That, and nothing less, is what is at stake in your current deliberations about whether we should tolerate the practice of human cloning...
...Opponents of a legislative ban frequently argue that such a ban would be rendered ineffective by the fact that we live in a globalized world in which any attempt to regulate technology by sovereign nation-states can easily be sidestepped by moving to another jurisdiction...
...Another witness in support of Weldon-Stupak was Judy Norsigian, executive director of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective and coauthor of the latest edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, the most widely distributed feminist text in America...
...This is part of a larger widespread belief that technological advance should not and cannot be stopped...
...Cloning] constitutes unethical experimentation on the child-to-be, subjecting him or her to enormous risks of bodily and developmental abnormalities...
...And it is unethical, since it would establish, for the first time in federal statutes, a class of embryos that it is a crime not to destroy, a felony not to treat as anything except disposable tissue...
...There was a revealing moment in the question period that followed the testimony—one of those brief flashes that expose our current situation—when Congressman Ted Strickland of Ohio complained, "We should not allow theology, philosophy, or politics to interfere with the decision we make on this issue...
...We encourage our readers to take a look at their complete statements at www.howse.gm/judiciary and www.house.gov/commerce...
...Human cloning belongs to this eugenics project...
...The harms, in other words, are known—not a matter of speculation—whereas the hypothesized benefits are a matter of conjecture, in some cases rather far-fetched conjecture...
...For if Congress does nothing about it, we shall have human cloning, and we shall have it soon...
...This issue, however, will require personal leadership from President Bush—and sooner rather than later...
...And it would serve no justifiable purpose...
...The aim in all this is not to prevent devastating illnesses but precisely to reflect and to reinforce certain societal prejudices in and through genetic selection...
...A ban solely on "reproductive" cloning will prove nothing more—and nothing less—than a license to clone...
...A majority of members of Congress, I believe, are, like most Americans, opposed to human cloning...
...It represents a giant step toward turning procreation into manufacture...
...But opposition is not enough...
...This is unenforceable, since only a judicially ordered abortion could eliminate the result of violating such a law...
...Second, to argue that no national ban or regulation can precede an international agreement on the subject is to put the cart before the horse...
...But, as she explained, Cloning advocates are seeking to appropriate the language of reproductive rights to support their case...
...As she noted, her organization has "a long track record" of support for legalized abortion...
...Important testimony was also offered by Alexander Capron, a Clinton appointee to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and professor of law at the University of Southern California, by Gerard Bradley of the University of Notre Dame law school, by Richard Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and by Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College and co-founder of the Council for Responsible Genetics...
...It is unprosecutable, since it would require an unattainable knowledge of a scientist's intention in creating a clone...
...The administration favors the passage of specific legislation to prohibit the cloning of a human being," Allen told the Energy and Commerce subcommittee...
...In the first place, it is simply not the case that the pace and scope of technological advance cannot be controlled politically...
...There is an immense difference between seeking to end an unwanted pregnancy and seeking to create a genetic duplicate human being...
Vol. 6 • July 2001 • No. 40
