David Weldon: “This is a very confusing quote because it really mixes two issues. It starts out saying cloning is a widely used, vital…”

“This is a very confusing quote because it really mixes two issues. It starts out saying cloning is a widely used, vital medical tool that has allowed scientists and researchers to develop powerful new drugs. What they are talking about is we have been cloning tissues in the labs for years, we have been cloning animals in the labs for years, we have been cloning DNA in the lab, and some of these cloning technologies are finding their way into the research and development arenas that are used for development of new drugs, produce insulin, useful bacteria in the lab. And so those statements are true. But my bill does not ban those things. This group, CAMR, or the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, they are against my bill; but in that response they fail to point out that my bill does not ban all of that animal cloning and all of that DNA cloning, all that stuff that is going on. What it specifically only bans is human cloning, an attempt to create a human embryo in the lab, and they seem to imply in the first sentence of that quote the gentleman just read that it is a vital medical tool. Those applications that would be permissible under my legislation are certainly vital, and they will proceed unfettered, but human cloning is not a vital medical tool. There is not one research article where human cloning has been used to treat anybody of anything.”