David Weldon: “This bill before us today entitled the Human Cloning Prohibition Act, is better entitled the 'Human Clone Implantation…”

“This bill before us today entitled the Human Cloning Prohibition Act, is better entitled the 'Human Clone Implantation Prohibition Act.' Essentially what it does is make it a crime to implant a cloned human embryo in the uterus of a woman. While the gentlewoman from Colorado has said this is a very different bill from the Greenwood substitute, it is true if you sit down with the two of them and read them, they read differently; but the net effect, let's be serious, is the same. It is the goal pursued by many research scientists, who I assume do not ascribe to a belief in the sanctity of human life, that they want to begin experimentation on human embryos produced through the process of human cloning. My position when we began debating this issue 5, 6 years ago, remains the same. There are a host of problems with this, not the least of which is that I and millions of Americans like me believe that human life is sacred and we should not be wholesale producing it to be experimented with in the lab and then discarded when the experimentation is done. Are we really trying to say to the American people we want to make the human embryo the lab rat of the 21st century? I will add, this is going to create a huge demand for human eggs. It has been very surprising to me to see so many people on the left who claim to be great champions of women's issues, it is going to create a lot of pressure for more human eggs.”