As Congress Stalls, States Pursue Cloning Debate 

SHERYL GAY STOLBERG / NY Times 26may02

After nearly a year of emotional arguments in Congress -- but no new federal laws -- the national debate over human cloning has shifted to the states. Six states have already banned cloning in one form or another, and this year 38 anti-cloning measures were introduced in 22 states.

Laws passed
CA, LA, VA, IA, MN, RI

Legislation Considered in 2002
AZ, CO, NE, KS, MO, OK, IL, WI, KY, SC,
TN, MS, AL, FL, NJ, NY, DE, MA, NH

Pending
AL, AZ, DE, IL, MA, NY

CLONING: A LEGISLATIVE PATCHWORK
Six states have passed laws banning some 
human cloning. Twenty-two, including some 
that already have laws, have considered 
measures this year to ban or restrict cloning.

The resulting patchwork of laws, people on all sides of the issue say, complicates a nationwide picture already clouded by scientific and ethical questions over whether and how to restrict cloning or to ban it altogether.

Like their counterparts in Washington, state legislators say they are concerned about the prospect of cloned babies. They are also divided over the ethics of cloning human embryos for research, which proponents say holds vast promise for treating diseases and which detractors say raises the specter of "embryo farms."

At the same time, they say they are frustrated with Congress, and hopeful that their actions might ultimately force Washington to follow suit.

"State-by-state legislation is something that I believe we need to do to make a statement," said Jim Reynolds, a freshman Republican state legislator in Oklahoma who this year tried unsuccessfully to persuade his colleagues to ban all cloning experiments. "It may, in some small way, put the emphasis on this issue, to get the federal government to finally do something."

Last July, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would ban human cloning for reproduction or research, and President Bush has urged the Senate to do the same.

But the Senate is torn between the complete cloning ban, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and an alternative measure backed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would allow the use of cloned human embryos for medical research but prohibit reproductive cloning.

Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., the majority leader, who supports Feinstein's bill, promised Brownback a vote by February or March, then set a deadline of Memorial Day. Now, Daschle says, the vote will take place in June. Brownback, irritated, is threatening to attach his bill as an amendment to other legislation to force a vote on it.

Cloning opponents around the country are irritated as well. "The Senate is dragging its feet," said John Redwine, a doctor and Republican state senator from Sioux City who was the chief sponsor of an anti-cloning bill in Iowa. The bill passed, and now cloning experiments are a felony in Iowa, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Other efforts have met with varying degrees of success. Legislation that would have banned cloning for any reason was defeated this year in Kentucky and Florida and killed in New Hampshire and Oklahoma before it came to a vote.

Besides Iowa, only Michigan has outlawed cloning for research and reproduction. Missouri prohibits state financing for experiments intended to clone babies.

In California, a commission has recommended that the state's reproductive cloning ban, which expires at the end of this year, be extended and that research cloning be regulated.

Louisiana, Rhode Island and Virginia also prohibit reproductive cloning. But Virginia's law is unclear. It permits "technologies to clone molecules, including DNA, cells or tissues," but makes no mention of embryos.

Since 1997, when scientists announced the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, the specter of cloned babies -- infants that are, in essence, genetic carbon copies of adults -- has loomed large in the public psyche and in the minds of lawmakers. That year, California became the first state to enact cloning legislation. The law banned reproductive cloning and established a commission to make recommendations about how to proceed when the law expires.

"It was very much a bipartisan bill," said Francis Pizzulli, a lawyer who is a member of the commission. "There was a lot of concern about the impact on the children to be."

Today, there is widespread agreement that cloning for reproduction is unsafe and should be banned. Now, the debate has shifted away from the ethics of baby-making and toward the morality of cloning embryos for their cells and tissues, which might be used to treat disease. The controversy pits religious conservatives and abortion opponents, who regard embryos as nascent human life,

against patients' groups, scientists and the biotechnology industry.

Last November, a Massachusetts biotechnology company, Advanced Cell Technology, announced that it was trying to clone human embryos for research. Around the country, lawmakers swung into action.

Among them was Kathleen Souza, a self-described "adamant right-to-lifer" and Republican state legislator from New Hampshire. She sought help from Americans United for Life, a public-interest law firm in Chicago devoted to restricting abortion rights, which drafted a bill similar to the one that passed the House of Representatives.

"In the absence of a prohibition, this is legal," Souza said. "I would hate to see what has happened in Massachusetts come to New Hampshire. I felt this was an emergency."

Her fellow lawmakers disagreed, and Souza's bill died, she said, at the hands of abortion rights advocates. "They said they were afraid that if we acknowledged an embryo was a human life, that somehow the pro-lifers could extend on this argument and impinge on a woman's right to choose," Souza said. "We couldn't get past that."

Some critics warn that the state-by-state approach will create havens for cloning research unless Congress intervenes. But others say such a patchwork could have benefits.

"It allows us to see over time, in practice, which approach is most satisfactory," said R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and medical ethics at the University of Wisconsin who favors research cloning.

Anti-cloning measures are pending in several states, among them Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.