Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space Holds Hearing on Human Cloning
FDCH TRANSCRIPTS
Congressional Hearings
Jan. 29, 2003
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space Holds Hearing on Human Cloning
SPECTER:
Mr. Chairman, I shall be very brief. I ask unanimous consent that my statement be made a part of the record.
BROWNBACK:
Without objection.
SPECTER:
Senator Hatch has outlined the issues very, well, and I will just supplement with a couple of comments. During my 23 years on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Health and Human Services, I have promoted the funding for the National Institutes of Health, which have done remarkable work. When stem cells burst upon the scene in November of 1998, in my capacity as chairman of that subcommittee, I convened the first of some 14 hearings on the subject.
I am totally opposed to human cloning. The word cloning has been used with reproductive cloning, which is a misnomer. It is really nuclear transplantation. There are enormous advances possible on the most dreaded maladies around. If the embryos could be used to produce life, that would be their highest use, and I would be all for it. And Senator Hatchthis is the only thing I'll repeatsaid he can't understand why you should destroy embryos instead of using them. And I think that's the consideration in a nutshell.
Last year, I took the lead in putting up $1 million, or the appropriations did for embryo adoption. And if there are enough people who are willing to adopt embryos, we ought to give them tax breaks. That would be the best use. But rather than discard them, let us use them. Let us work together to ban human cloning, but not mistake that it is not cloning when you talk about nuclear transplantation, which has the capacity to save many, lives.
President Bush acknowledged the importance of stem cells on August the 9th in his famous speech where he authorized federal funding for stem cell lines in existence at that time. Let us permit science to go forward.
That's three and-a-half minutes, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you.