Just when you thought the issue of human cloning had been relegated to the background, it resurfaces once more to offer further proof that certain members of the House of Representatives just can't let sleeping clones lie.
The latest effort to ban all forms of cloning came last Thursday when House Resolution 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, passed by a disturbingly high margin of 241 to 155. Sponsored by Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Florida, and Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., this bill is essentially the same legislation that was killed in the Senate last year for its failure to distinguish between reproductive and therapeutic cloning.
At the heart of this attempt to stop scientific progress is a flawed moral argument. While virtually all will readily agree that reproductive cloning, with its lackluster success rate and high likelihood for genetic abnormalities, should not be pursued on safety grounds alone, the argument against therapeutic cloning is not nearly as concrete.
The idea put forth by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., that the very act of creating a cloned embryo is a crime against nature, is preposterous.
In his remarks during last week's House floor debate, Sensenbrenner claimed, "It diminishes the careful balance of humanity that Mother Nature has installed in each of us." He went on to describe the potential for outlandish scenarios where clones were grown and harvested for organs in a kind of worldwide genetic marketplace.
What is missing from this condemnation of cloning embryos is a sound reason for believing research would necessitate abuse. The "slippery slope" that so many opponents of cloning speak about involves some hefty assumptions that are unsubstantiated.
Rejecting a process that has the potential to accomplish much in the way of curing degenerative genetic disorders solely because one can envision a remote chance that the technology will be exploited is shortsighted. If we all thought like that, cellular research never would have gotten off the ground.
As for the other popular conservative theory that creating embryos for the purpose of destroying them is tantamount to wasting human life, consider this: Though it is the beginning of human life, a tiny blastocyst is not the equivalent of a fully developed person. I know this sounds radical but humor me.
Whether one believes that life begins at conception or not, granting a cluster of cells a status higher than an ordinary chemical reaction is unwarranted. At the stage of development where research is done, the embryo is neither conscious nor bearing any resemblance to a human being.
Between the defeating of an amendment to the House bill that would have made an exception for therapeutic cloning, and President Bush's insistence that he will veto anything less than a complete ban, there isn't really much room in the middle. The result could be that no legislation is passed at all, leaving reproductive cloning to continue unchecked.
With a Republican-controlled Senate, though, the result might very well be different from last year. Sen. Bill Frist, the new majority leader, has gone on record supporting a ban on all forms of cloning. The biggest challenge will be in overcoming the necessary 60 votes to defeat the inevitable filibuster, which, at the moment at least, seems unlikely.
In the end, the position put forward by the House creates a situation that no good can possibly come from. For all their talk about the value of human life, cloning opponents sure seem hell bent on making it more complicated.
Scott Phillips is a justice studies junior. Reach him at robert.phillips2@asu.edu.
