Baby Eve's Impact on the 108th Congress     1/3/2003
Senate Majority Leader Frist supports a ban on cloning.
By Michael Schwartz, CWA Vice President for Governmen

Senate Majority Leader Frist supports a ban on cloning.

The day after Christmas the Raelian spaceship cult announced the birth of a baby girl, nicknamed "Eve," who had been produced through cloning. Considering the source, that announcement might well prove to be a hoax. But even if the Raelians’ baby was created the normal way, the possibility of bringing a human clone to birth is within scientific reach. Unless preventive measures are taken, it is all but inevitable that one day soon there will be a verifiable birth of a cloned human being.

One beneficial effect of the publicity surrounding the cult’s claim is that it has moved anti-cloning legislation back to the top of public attention. In the last Congress the House of Representatives passed a ban on cloning by a wide margin as far back as July 2001. But the cloning ban was one of hundreds of House-passed bills that never came to the floor of the Senate under the leadership of Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota), who had made it his top priority to protect Democratic senators from having to take tough votes.

Over the course of the past 18 months, the biotech industry has spent a large amount of money to create confusion among the public and senators, in order to prevent the cloning ban, sponsored by Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), from getting through the Senate. As things stood by the end of the 107th Congress, it looked as though the cloning ban was out of reach, as Brownback and Landrieu were unable to muster more than 40 of their colleagues to their position.

But one critically important supporter they had gained for their bill was the Senate’s only physician, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tennessee). Frist was the one member of the Senate who could speak with some personal level of expertise on the complicated scientific questions, and he had great credibility on the issue because of his long-standing identification with the medical research community. And, as if Providence wished to heighten the drama, just days before the Raelians announced their claim to have brought a cloned baby to birth, it was determined that Sen. Frist would replace Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) as leader of the Senate’s Republican majority. Suddenly, the prospects for enacting a ban on cloning appear to be greatly improved.

Still, a ban on cloning is far from a sure thing. Apart from Landrieu, not a single Democrat is publicly committed to supporting it, while several Republicans, led by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), are backing the “clone and kill” pseudo-ban the biotech industry wants. That legislation would specifically authorize the cloning of human beings, but it would prohibit the implantation of a cloned embryo into a womb with the intention of bringing it to birth.

This “clone and kill” procedure is euphemistically called “therapeutic” cloning, although there is nothing therapeutic about it. The intention of its supporters is to guarantee a plentiful supply of human embryos for experimentation. Human embryos are generated through cloning (removing the nucleus from a human ovum and replacing it with the nucleus of nearly any other cell from any human donor, then initiating cell division through an electrical charge) and allowed to develop until they are about two weeks old. They are then killed, and the stem cells are harvested for use in experiments.

Stem cells from embryos are preferred for laboratory uses because they replicate rapidly and can produce every kind of tissue. But those very characteristics of rapid growth and uncontrolled mutation make embryonic stem cells unsuitable for use in treating patients. After numerous attempts, there is not a single case of successful treatment of a patient with embryonic stem cells. Meanwhile, hundreds of patients have experienced cures that could only have been called miraculous a few years ago, thanks to therapies from stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood, adult tissue or even animal tissue. Stem cells are abundant and have tremendous medical potential, but the stem cells that are taken from embryos have proven to have no therapeutic value. It is not a question here of sacrificing one human life for another, but rather of sacrificing a life for a laboratory experiment.

Nevertheless, both the public and the Senate remain seriously confused about the issue because of the campaign of misinformation that has been waged by the biotech interests. Many senators in both parties remain uncommitted between the cloning ban and the “clone and kill” pseudo-ban, and even some of those who have taken sides may be open to persuasion on the issue. We can be reasonably certain that the House will pass a good bill, but the fate of this issue in the Senate depends, in large part, on the clarity of thinking, commitment to principle, leadership ability and the persuasive talents of Sen. Frist. It will be a difficult undertaking, but Sen. Frist is in a position to make a real difference for the good of humanity.

· PRAY for Sen. Bill Frist as he takes on his new responsibilities as Majority Leader, and for Sens. Sam Brownback and Mary Landrieu as they try to build support among their colleagues for the ban on human cloning.

· ACT Call your senators and ask that they announce publicly their support for the Brownback-Landrieu bill to ban human cloning. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121.

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