"The President believes that the moral and ethical issues posed by human cloning are profound and cannot be ignored even in the quest for scientific discovery," Fleischer said. "The President believes that any attempt to clone a human being would present a grave risk both to the mother and the child. He opposes it on moral grounds." He said, "The President will work with Congress" on a federal statute prohibiting human cloning. (Reuters, 3/28/01)

The President's statement came as the Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee convened to hear testimony from research scientists and others on issues related to human cloning. "The disturbing evidence of the defects, deformities and deaths experienced in animal cloning should serve as a stark warning . . .," said Rep. Jim Greenwood, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the subcommittee. Noting that cloning involves the emptying of a donor egg of its nucleus (genetic material/ DNA), replacing it with a cell containing DNA from the animal being cloned, then stimulating cell division. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) declared that cloning "interferes with the natural order of things. People have a right to their own genetic makeup, which should not be replicated."

Researchers already engaged in human cloning research plan to defy efforts to prohibit their work. Reproductive researcher Panos Zavos who resigned from the University of Kentucky this month, and Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori have said they would clone a human within 12 months. (The Washington Times, 3/29/01) Brigitte Boisselier, scientific director of the Raelian religion, said that her group has begun cloning experiments at an undisclosed location in the United States. (Raelians believe that human beings are clones of extra terrestrials.) She would not say she would obey a recent warning from the FDA not to clone a person without that agency's approval. (Washington Post, 2/29/01)

In 1997, President Clinton issued an executive order banning the use of federal funds for human cloning research. But, there is no law in force that makes cloning human beings a crime. And there is no prohibition on using private funds to clone human beings.

Various bills will be introduced this spring that relate to prohibiting human cloning. It is essential that legislation be passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush that will ban human cloning research in the United States, across the board. State Legislatures must take heed as well, and not leave this matter entirely up to the federal government. Raelian researcher Brigette Boisselier testified that she would not reveal where her team's U.S. work is being conducted, other than to say it was not in one of the several states that had passed anti-cloning legislation. Obviously, states must institute their own bans on human cloning research. Congress should encourage state action by passing a measure that conditions the receipt of federal funds on the states' passage of human cloning bans.

The March 28th issue of National Review carries an interview by Kathryn Jean Lopez with Wesley Smith, author of "The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America," in which they discuss cloning and other bioethical issues. In the interview, Mr. Smith said, "Cloning is about transforming the mystery and majesty of life into a mere malleable and marketable commodity, which is not surprising since many cloning supporters in the bioethics movement embrace a view of human life as ‘merely biological,' as essentially no different from the rest of life on the planet. Moreover, cloning is the intended vehicle by which neo-eugenicists hope to ‘control' human evolution."

Mr. Smith continued; "I am also struck by the hubris of the entire cloning enterprise. Somehow pro-cloners forget that we are the race that built the unsinkable ship, Titanic. Our fallibility is part of who we are and it is the one human attribute that the Brave New Worlders always seem to forget. But it won't go away and that makes any attempt to mess with human evolution tremendously dangerous."

A red flag was raised in a USA Today (3/28/01) report that Rep. Greenwood, one of the strongest abortion advocates in the Republican Party, said at the hearing, "What we're hoping to do is create rifle-shot legislation that says you cannot clone a human for reproductive reasons." The question is, what does he mean by that? There are people who advocate so-called "therapeutic cloning" involving the creation of embryos through cloning, experimenting on them, and then killing them, thus avoiding implanting them in a woman's uterus. By their scientifically inaccurate definition, implantation constitutes "reproduction." Congress and the President must not be misled by this tactic.

Let us not forget that once you have an embryo, reproduction has already occurred. The embryo is a human being. The only legislation supportable by President Bush and the rest of us who are repelled by the idea of human cloning is to make the creation of cloned human embryos a crime. Cloning, then killing, is out of the question.

Please let President Bush know you support his opposition to human cloning and his intention to work with Congress to ban it in our country. White House Fax: 202/456-2461; White House Operator: 202/456-1414.

Congressman Greenwood can be reached at Phone: 202/225/4276; Fax: 202/225-9511 for clarification of his intentions.

Bush Thwarts Pro-Abortion Efforts to Undermine Mexico City Policy - On January 22, 2001, President Bush re-instituted the Mexico City policy. The abortion lobby, led by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) in the House, has been plotting to undermine that policy through congressional action. Bush, exercising his presidential powers, issued a Memorandum on March 28, 2001, that removed his decision from any kind of congressional jurisdiction. The Memorandum for the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development states, in part, "The Mexico City Policy announced by President Reagan in 1984 required foreign nongovernmental organizations to agree as a condition of their receipt of Federal funds for family planning activities that such organizations would neither perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations. This policy was in effect until it was rescinded on January 22, 1993.

"It is my conviction that taxpayer funds appropriated pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act should not be given to foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning.

"The foregoing directive accomplishes the objective of my January 22, 2001, Memorandum to the USAID Administrator — to reinstate in full all of the requirements of the Mexico City Policy in effect on January 19, 1993 — and is issued pursuant to the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, . . ."