Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
February 6, 2002
Colorado considers ban on cloning humans
State legislature hears debate to ban research on cloned humans
Legislation to ban the cloning of human beings in Colorado was tabled in a House committee on Jan. 28 following an impassioned debate over the grave ethical and human rights issues raised by the procedure.
The vote on HB 1073, which is modeled on the legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last year, was postponed because one of the experts scheduled to testify was not able to attend the hearing.
The legislators, medical experts, lobbyists and reporters who nearly filled the small conference room on the ground floor of the State Capitol for the House Civil Justice Committee hearing heard dramatically different accounts of the consequences of allowing experimentation on cloned humans.
One medical expert stated that the potential cures that could be developed from research on human embryos outweigh other concerns, while another stated that experimenting on cloned humans is neither scientifically practical nor ethical and that poor women would be compelled to place themselves at risk by selling their eggs to researchers.
The sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, described the cloning of human beings as "unsafe, unethical and unnecessary."
Mitchell said the legislation is necessary since individuals have already attempted to clone human beings and "such actions pose massive risks and are therefore irresponsible and unethical."
House Bill 1073 would ban experiments that would seek to create cloned human beings, and those that clone human embryos and kill them for the purpose of research. Mitchell said that there is no distinction between the two types of cloning.
"Once we allow the creation of cloned human organisms, it is only a matter of time before an authorized or illegal clone is implanted in a woman," said Mitchell. "When that happens, the genie is out of the bottle and it is impossible to stop.
"Creating human life in the laboratory, even with the hope of benefiting other human life, turns human life into a commodity," continued Mitchell. "It cheapens human life and it is the wrong approach."
Rep. Alice Madden, D-Boulder, objected to the legislation. She said that "no one in Colorado" wants to create cloned human beings, but "thereputic" cloning research could lead to important medical advances.
"It seems that you are wanting to make illegal thereputic cloning that could potentially help millions of people out of a fear that we have no way of knowing will become a reality," Madden said.
John V. Sladek, vice chancellor for research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, said that "therapeutic" cloning — the creation of human embryos for the purpose of research — could lead to breakthrough cures for victims of cancer, stroke, heart disease, Parkinson's and other ailments.
Dr. David A. Prentice, professor in the Department of Life Sciences at Indiana State University, who addressed the committee on behalf of the "Do No Harm Coalition," countered Sladek's claims.
Prentice said that the ethical problems associated with allowing experimentation on cloned humans might be irrelevant, given the prior week's reported medical breakthrough using adult stem cells, which do not require destroying human life.
Referring to the Jan. 23 breaking story on the NewScientist.com web site, Prentice explained that a researcher at the University of Minnesota has discovered the "ultimate stem cell," which has passed tests proving it can form any tissue in the body, can be grown in culture indefinitely, and does not form cancerous masses.
Since it is currently the subject of a patent application, not all of the research is available, Prentice explained, but if confirmed, the finding could lead to breakthrough therapies for ailments such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, heart ailments and other diseases.
Prentice pointed out that full scale cloning research would be a disaster for women's rights around the world. Because of the low success rate in creating cloned embryos, a minimum of 800 million human eggs would be required to treat the nation's 16 million diabetes patients alone.
"A minimum of 80 million women of childbearing age would have to donate their eggs," Prentice explained. "Questions arise as to just where all of these eggs will come from, as well as the health risks attendant to the donors due to the massive hormone injections required to mature this number of eggs."
The need for vast numbers of human eggs would quickly create a consumer market and poor women in the U.S. and women in the Third World would face pressure to undergo the risky and painful medical procedure to harvest them, Prentice added.
Jim Tatten, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, testified on behalf of Colorado's bishops in support of HB 1073.
"The bishops of Colorado oppose reproductive cloning and cloning for reproductive purposes," said Tatten. "The Colorado Catholic Conference believes that science and medicine can advance to treat illness without human cloning.
"Human cloning creates a human embryo," he continued. "Medical research on human life is a violation of human dignity and should be opposed."
Information on ethical stem cell research can be found on the "Do No Harm" coalition website at www.stemcellresearch.org.
Contact Us
