Phil Gingrey: “This is a political ploy, bringing this bill up under suspension, in my opinion, to give Members on the other side of…”

“This is a political ploy, bringing this bill up under suspension, in my opinion, to give Members on the other side of the aisle the opportunity for cover on this bill, this Castle-DeGette legislation that's coming up tomorrow. When King Solomon ordered that the baby be cut in half, who knew that someone would actually take him up on the offer. And yet regrettably, this bill before us today, H.R. 2560, it aims to figuratively and literally cut the baby in half. Supporters of this legislation claim that H.R. 2650 bans human cloning. This claim could not be further from the truth. If we really want to ban human cloning, then the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), in a bipartisan way, they have the right bill, and this was reintroduced by Representative Weldon last night. I'm a proud cosponsor of that. That bans human cloning for any purpose, reproductive or research. I'm not impugning the motive of Representative DeGette, maybe it's inadvertent, and maybe hopefully she understands through this discussion today about the bill that, inadvertently, this promotes cloning for research purposes.”