Don’t Clone Britain’s Approach
What the Brits got wrong.

rohibiting human cloning is being debated not only in the United States but across the world, as I've seen firsthand after spending a week in Europe discussing the issues of cloning and stem cells. Recently, the British government received a shock when a lawsuit brought by Bruno Quintavalle of the Pro-Life Alliance exposed the fact that a British law did not really regulate human cloning. Immediately cloning entrepreneur Dr. Severino Antinori proposed setting up a laboratory in Britain for the purpose of producing cloned babies for infertile couples.

The British government has rushed to try to cover this deficit, introducing a one-line bill in the House of Lords to prohibit implantation of a cloned embryo into a woman. But this haste has produced an inadequate fig leaf — numerous legal flaws exist in the bill, and the lack of deliberation has angered many in the British parliament. The end result will be more egg on the face of the British government.

In the meantime the European parliament, after lengthy debate, has approved language which would enact a total ban on human cloning, as well as banning the creation of human embryos for research. Our own Congress has already spent a great deal of time deliberating the cloning issue; the House of Representatives managed to pass the Weldon-Stupak bill this summer, a complete ban on human cloning. The matching bill in the Senate sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, backed by the White House, has not been brought forward, though there is a promise that it will be scheduled for debate and a vote this coming spring. The Senate should move swiftly to pass the ban.

As the British experience demonstrates, a total ban on human cloning is the only way to go.