Sam Brownback: “I rise to speak on bipartisan legislation that Senator Landrieu and myself are introducing, the Human Cloning…”

“I rise to speak on bipartisan legislation that Senator Landrieu and myself are introducing, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act. We do this today with 26 other cosponsors. It is important to talk about this matter as we set up for the bioethical debate which will be taking place after Easter and discuss some of the parameters and issues surrounding this topic. We have a continuum of discussion points, as this body and the rest of the country and, indeed, the world is engaged on the subject. There is an ethical way to move forward on stem cell research that is producing treatments and applications for human maladies, now in over 70 areas. The science continues to grow, and it is promising. I have held press conferences involving people with spinal cord injuries who could not walk and are walking again with the aid of braces. I have hosted people at press conferences who are suffering from congestive heart failure yet are now able to go up flights of stairs they couldn't even imagine previously with treatments utilizing their own adult stem cells. I have visited with cancer patients who have been treated with cord blood stem cells who are cancer-free now. We have new discoveries taking place. For example, in the amniotic fluid surrounding the child in the womb exists an abundant supply of stem cells that are malleable into many different types of cells.”