Gary Hart: “I rise in support of H.R. 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act. People agree that cloning humans is wrong. The recent…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act. People agree that cloning humans is wrong. The recent scare that we all went through regarding an organization called Clonaid brought revulsion to everyone who heard the story that there may have been a cloned embryo implanted into a woman and there may be a child as a result. People across the globe were upset by this possibility. The only way for us to avoid this possibility is to completely ban cloning. Once that clone is created, how do we control what is done with that embryo? The only effective means to prevent having a cloned human is to ban cloning. As for the claims we have heard today as for the need for this process to cure disease, there is no evidence that therapeutic cloning has produced a single cure. Not only has it failed in animal research, it has failed also in human research. Scientific ethics requires that we draw a line. We draw a line in research every day as far as science goes. The fear that we could tread in territory that would create a cloned human being is enough to prevent us from allowing cloning at all. We need to maintain these ethical principles that guide scientific research and inquiries. Frankly, the costs are too high to our society if we do not do it. We have heard the statistic before that between 95 and 98 percent of cloning in animals fails.”