Ban Human Cloning

BAN HUMAN CLONING -- (House of Representatives - December 04, 2007)

[Page: H14132]

---

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Speaker, earlier today in this body we observed a minute of silence to honor the great life of Henry Hyde, our distinguished former colleague from Illinois. Henry Hyde clearly established himself in America as one of the great defenders of the sanctity of human life. He was eloquent on a host of issues in his outstanding rhetorical skills, but perhaps none was he more able and capable than in defending the dignity and sanctity of human life. And this body has been engaged in a tremendous debate involving the sanctity of human life as to whether or not for years now the Federal Government should fund the experimental research called human embryonic stem cell research, which involves creating human embryos for the purpose of killing them.

President Bush, in what I believe to be one of the finest moments of his Presidency, decided to let the research go forward at the NIH, but denied funding to any more research which involved killing human embryos which had been occurring prior to the beginning of his term. This body has been engaged in a tremendous debate for years now as to whether or not the Bush policy should be overturned.

[Page: H14133]

And the defenders of overturning the Bush policy have contended for years and years and years now, number one, that there was great potential from human embryonic stem cell research, which is something I and others have questioned for years. Adult stem cell research and cord blood stem cell research have been showing great potential and clinical utility cures. Embryonic stem cells form tumors. They have never been shown to be safe or useable.

But nonetheless, many people felt, myself included, that the science would outstrip this debate; and recently, I was very pleased to see the publication in two publications, Cell and Science, from two different research labs, one here in the United States involving Dr. Jamie Thompson, the researcher who originally was credited with discovering human embryonic stem cells. I would disagree, he didn't really discover them; we always knew they were there. He was just the first one to isolate them. The other is a research lab in Japan, I believe, and they have shown that you can create human embryonic stem cells from skin cells.

Why is this so important? Why is this so significant? Well, for years in this body, in this Congress, we have been trying to pass a bill to ban human cloning. Everybody agrees human cloning is bad, but there have been people in this body and in the other body contending that we only want to ban attempts to create a baby; we shouldn't ban the creation of human clones in the lab because embryonic stem cells can never be used in therapy. I could never be treated for a disease from some other embryo because my tissues would reject it; but through embryonic cloning, we could do something called therapeutic cloning.

Now, I have contended that was a science fix in that it had never been done in a research setting involving animals; and, furthermore, that it was not necessary. Now, this research shows you could scrape my skin and create embryonic stem cells from that skin scraping that would be genetically identical to me and could be used in therapies.

So why is this important? Number one, I think President Bush has been vindicated. We shouldn't be funding this research. It is ethically questionable research, and it is unnecessary.

Number two, it is now time for the Congress of the United States to put on the desk of President Bush a bill to ban all forms of human cloning because it is just not necessary.

I started out talking about Henry Hyde and the sanctity of human life. Even if you don't believe in the sanctity of human life, one thing is absolutely certain: to create embryonic stem cells in the old way you needed human eggs. Where were we ever going to get all of these human eggs from? You have to get them from women, a very ethically and morally questionable thing for us to be doing, to ask women to donate through a painful, difficult surgical procedure, to donate their eggs for a form of research that has never been validated in the lab, in animal models as being viable in clinical therapeutics.

So you don't have to invoke the sanctity of human life, but I must say I personally believe in the sanctity of human life. I believe Henry Hyde was right when he spoke over and over again on the importance of this. And it is now time for the Congress of the United States to act, put a bill on the President's desk to ban human cloning. The science is finally with us now.

Source