The Senate Punts on Cloning
But there will be a vote next year.

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
November 1, 2001 4:30 p.m.

he Senate won't pass a bill on cloning or stem cells this year, under an agreement announced today between Majority Leader Tom Daschle, anti-cloning conservative Sam Brownback (R., Kan.), and embryo-research supporter Arlen Specter (R., Pa.). The two Republicans had been trying to advance their divergent causes by attaching riders to appropriations bills. Now Daschle has promised each of them a freestanding debate, plus up-or-down votes on their own bills, next February or March. In return, they have agreed not to press their issues onto the budget debate.

"Getting Specter to drop his language is a big victory for us," says Erik Hotmire, a spokesman for Brownback. "We look forward to the debate next year and the opportunity for the whole Senate to debate whether a person can also be a piece of property."

Brownback is seeking bans on human cloning, destructive embryo research, the creation of human-animal hybrids, and germ-line therapy; Specter wants to reverse the Bush administration's prohibitions on stem-cell research.

In a bipartisan vote last July, the House passed a ban on human cloning — and the Senate has faced pressure to take up the issue as well. The issue could have gone away after September 11 but it didn't because neither Brownback nor Specter would let it. House Majority Leader Dick Armey also has demanded action. "Scientists have taken a big step towards creating the world's first cloned monkey and it's feared a cloned human is soon to follow," he said today. "Time is of the essence. This mad science isn't standing still. The Senate shouldn't either. It should act now and decisively pass legislation to ban human cloning."

Now it looks like it will finally have the chance some time in the next six months.