David Weldon: “I think this is a good, fair rule. It allows an honest debate of the issues. As many of my colleagues know, I am a…”

“I think this is a good, fair rule. It allows an honest debate of the issues. As many of my colleagues know, I am a physician. I still see patients once a month at the veterans clinic in my congressional district, and I practiced medicine for 15 years before I was elected to the House of Representatives. I took care of a lot of patients with paralysis, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease. I saw firsthand on a daily basis the hardship those people and their families went through. Indeed, I wanted to share with all my colleagues that my father died of complications of diabetes disease. I had six uncles. When I was growing up as a kid, one of my favorite uncles was my Uncle John. He died of complications of Parkinson's disease. So if there were evidence to support the position being held by some people in this body and some people in the scientific community that there was great potential from therapeutic cloning, I would be the first to admit it. I could not deny it because it would be evident in the medical literature. But the fact of the matter is, the evidence is not there.”