Cloning Battle Heats Up

Aligning themselves with 40 Nobel laureates, senators who support human cloning research say they will not let President Bush's efforts to impose a cloning ban jeopardize the promise such research holds for curing disease.

The president on Wednesday pressed the Senate for such a ban, saying that cloning humans in and of itself is unconscionable, and that even for research purposes it could set the nation on a path "into a world we could live to regret."

Mr. Bush expressed his support for a ban proposed by Sens. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, and Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat.

"Life is a creation, not a commodity," he said.

But the president's appeal did little to slow efforts by a handful of senators to craft a compromise that would ban the cloning of human beings but leave room for embryo research. One author, Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said Wednesday there was "a significant group in the Senate determined to defeat" an outright ban.

"If the millions of people who suffer from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and heart disease and cancer — and every other known malady — realize that potential cures are going to be impeded, they'll let their senators know a thing or two," Specter said. "There's going to be a real fight on the Senate floor."

Mr. Bush countered with a veiled warning: "It would be a mistake for the U.S. Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber."

At issue is the production of embryos that are genetically identical to a donor human being. Mr. Bush voiced his opposition frequently last year, and in August he restricted federally financed stem cell research to 64 existing stem cell lines taken from embryos discarded by fertility clinics.

The House passed a ban on all human cloning in July but the Senate has not acted on it. Many senators object to the idea of cloning humans, but are not averse to cloning embryos for research that could cure disease.

Brownback told an anti-cloning rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that the ban was "clearly a winnable issue." Standing before a stack of petitions with 400,000 signatures, he said, "Cloning is wrong, period. Creating human life to destroy it is wrong."

Specter, along with Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy, Tom Harkin and Dianne Feinstein, proposed allowing "nuclear transplantation" research on illnesses such as cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

"We must not let the misplaced fears of today deny patients the cures of tomorrow," said Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. "Congress was right to place medicine over ideology in the past, and we should do the same again."

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, urged lawmakers to heed a call from 40 Nobel laureates who support research cloning, and he said it is possible to bar ethically repugnant uses of cloned tissue without blocking the research.

"The president wants to ban it all, and I think he's wrong," Daschle said. "And I think the American people are on our side on this issue."

The Nobel winners, including pioneers in cancer research and study of other life-threatening diseases, said the Brownback proposal, if passed, would have "a chilling effect on all scientific research in the United States." They called for legislation that would set criminal and civil penalties for creating a cloned human being.

"The cloning of a human being should be prohibited. Nuclear transplantation technology, on the other hand, is meant to produce stem cells, not babies," said Paul Berg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1980.

The president portrayed himself as an advocate of modern medicine, but in his view, human cloning is wrong even if it were to lead to breakthroughs against disease, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller.

"We must not forget that even the most noble ends do not justify any means," Mr. Bush said.

He called the prospects of successful research from clones "highly speculative," and said he fears nightmare scenarios in which embryos are created so they can be plundered for body parts, so that parents can have custom-ordered children or so that women's eggs can be sold at high prices.

Michael West, president and CEO of Worcester, Mass.-based Advanced Cell Technology, disputed that point. His company announced in November that it had cloned a six-cell human embryo for the purpose of culling stem cells.

"I'm not proud to be an American when our leadership doesn't take the time to get the science right," West said.