Advertisement

Hearing on cloning examines what is human

By CHRISTINE SUH, UPI Science News

WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- Members of a Senate committee Wednesday grappled with the question of when life begins, a concept that will play a key role in the coming debate over whether to allow therapeutic cloning research to proceed.

Although the House recently voted to ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning, senators have yet to take up the issue on the floor and their vote could be decisive because President Bush has said he will sign a total cloning ban into law if Congress passes it.

Advertisement

Scientists think therapeutic cloning has the potential to lead to treatments and fundamental insights into the cause of disease. But the technology is controversial because it requires the destruction of an embryo -- a ball of cells so tiny it could fit on the head of a pin -- which some pro-life groups consider to be a human being.

Advertisement

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, convened the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to "get everybody's views out in the open" on the subject of human cloning vs. a technique called therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transplant, said a spokesman for the senator. In SCNT, a complete set of human chromosomes is transferred to a woman's egg emptied of its genetic content.

"I believe that human life begins in the womb, not in a petri dish," Hatch told attendees after mentioning his pro-life stance, which some perceive as conflicting with his support for therapeutic cloning. On Feb. 5, Hatch introduced S. 303, the Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act of 2003 that would ban cloning but allow nuclear transplantation.

"Some 100 million Americans might one day benefit from embryonic stem cell research," Hatch said.

Witnesses at the hearing all agreed human cloning is immoral and should be banned. However, they could not agree on the more ethereal point of what constitutes human life.

Hatch and fellow pro-life lawmaker Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said replacing the half-set of chromosomes in a woman's egg with a full set of 46 from a somatic, or body, cell does not create a human life.

Advertisement

"It's time to put the matter at rest," said Langevin, who said he hopes to benefit from nuclear transplantation research. He had suffered a spinal cord injury as a teenager and was paralyzed as a result.

The destiny of cells created by SCNT is not the womb and that is the key difference, he said.

"Having come so close to losing my own life, I'm reminded every day how precious the gift of life truly is," Langevin said. "I see my position of support for therapeutic cloning as consistent with my pro-life views."

On the other side of the debate stood proponents of a total ban on both reproductive cloning and SCNT.

"There's only one type of human cloning," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., "and it always results in the creation of a human being." SCNT is a term that tries to hide that it really is human cloning, he added.

Just a few days before Hatch introduced legislation allowing nuclear transplantation, Brownback brought to the Senate S. 245, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003. The bill would ban SCNT for reproductive or research purposes. The House passed a similar bill in late February.

Advertisement

"Any biology textbook will define a human ovum or egg as a single cell -- it has only 23 chromosomes," Brownback said. "However, once an egg contains a complete nucleus ... then one has a developing embryo of that species."

In prepared testimony, Dr. Micheline Mathews-Roth, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said, "It is scientifically incorrect to say that a human life begins in the mother's womb."

Whether created through therapeutic cloning or in vitro fertilization, embryos are living, Mathews-Roth said.

He added, "Trying to justify the killing of what we know are very young (five- to seven-day-old) human beings, even for the very laudable purpose of trying to cure disease, is ethically unacceptable."

Latest Headlines