January (Web-only) 2003

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Comprehensive ban on human cloning one of first bills introduced in 108th Congress
U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), a prolife physician, has reintroduced a bill that would ban all human cloning, imprisoning and fining violators up to $1 million.

"Human cloning hasn't cured any diseases, it will commercialize women's eggs and wombs, it poses serious risks to the cloned child-to-be and violates human dignity," he said.

Weldon sponsored a similar bill last year, which passed in the House but stalled in the Senate, where opponents wanted a ban on reproductive human cloning but allowances for cloning for research and medical purposes. Though Republicans now control the Senate, the bill is expected to have similar trouble this year. Research into so-called "therapeutic cloning" says a spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), "offers hope to millions of people with incurable diseases. It would be unconscionable to stop that research and dash the hopes of those people."

Weldon dismisses such ideas. "I read the medical literature and there does not exist even an animal model for therapeutic cloning," he says. The chance of passing his bill, he told The Orlando Sentinel, "is yet to be determined, but I'm optimistic that we'll be able to do it."

Backers of the comprehensive ban say the threat of human cloning has been made apparent by the Raëlian UFO cult, which recently claimed they had created a human clone.

"In some sense, our friends in the Raëlian movement have helped us … to focus the attention of the American people on the perils that await us," Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told Reuters.

One item missing from Weldon's earlier bill is a ban on importing medical treatments that use human cloning techniques. The new bill still bans the ...