Roy Cooper: “I, like most Americans, am strongly opposed to human cloning. It is wrong to try to duplicate human beings. But it is…”

“I, like most Americans, am strongly opposed to human cloning. It is wrong to try to duplicate human beings. But it is important, as we ban human cloning, that we do not prevent legitimate scientific research into life-saving therapies that can mean so much to human life. All of us have friends who suffer from Alzheimer's, diabetes, stroke, Parkinson's, heart disease, liver failure, end-stage renal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, burns, multiple sclerosis, brain damage, Lou Gehrig's disease and lupus. Americans who suffer from these diseases should not be told that Congress has stopped the search for a cure for their diseases, and that they will have to move to another country to have any hope. One of the great achievements of Congress in the last several years has been to boost NIH funding to accelerate the discovery of cures for many of these dread diseases. It would be a mistake to put NIH and other leading research institutions in a legal straight-jacket that prevented legitimate research. Unfortunately, although the Weldon bill commendably bans human cloning, it also cripples scientific research into potentially-life saving therapies. That is why I am supporting the Greenwood bill, which bans human cloning without harming other scientific research.”