X-Message-Number: 18711

Subject: SF Gate: Feinstein's cloning bill draws intense lobbying, star 
power/Actor asks panel to kill opposing measure proposing ban
From: "Peter Christiansen" <>
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 10:02 -0800

 Focus on Senators from Utah, North Dakota and Georgia
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/03/06/MN117536.DTL
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, March 6, 2002 (SF Chronicle)

Feinstein's cloning bill draws intense lobbying, star power/Actor asks panel to 
kill opposing measure proposing ban
Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau


   Washington -- As a vote nears on Sen. Dianne Feinstein's proposal to allow
the use of cloned human embryos for research into spinal injuries and such
ailments as diabetes and Parkinson's disease, both sides launched feverish
lobbying efforts yesterday.
   Backers of Feinstein's bill brought out their biggest name, actor
Christopher Reeve, who became a "C-2 ventilator-dependent quadriplegic" in
an accident seven years ago. He pleaded with senators to defeat another
measure, a total ban on cloning proposed by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
   "Some people are able to accept living with a severe disability. I am not
one of them," the star of the "Superman" movies said in Senate committee
testimony.
   For their part, backers of Brownback's bill started running TV and radio
ads aimed at undecided senators from Utah, North Dakota and Georgia. The
ads say that backers of embryonic cloning for research purposes are intent
on starting "human embryo farms," a charge that Feinstein and her
co-sponsors said was ridiculous.
   The intense lobbying and the increasingly heated rhetoric show that the
outcome of the Senate debate expected in the next few weeks is far from
certain. At stake, say the Feinstein bill's backers, is the future of
promising biomedical research that could lead to treatments or cures for a
range of diseases that affect 100 million Americans.
   Opponents say that however well-meaning the research, in which embryos are
harvested early in their development to try to coax so-called stem cells
to grow into any body organ or tissue, it will inevitably lead to the
cloning of human babies and create a degrading market for women's eggs.
   Feinstein's bill would ban reproductive cloning and would carry a penalty
of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine for violators.
   The House has already passed a version of Brownback's bill, and last
summer President Bush ordered strict limits on federally funded research
using embryonic stem cells. He has said he would sign the Brownback bill,
but he is sure to veto Feinstein's.
   The Senate cloning debate has produced some odd coalitions that cross the
usual ideological lines. Brownback trumpets his backers as a
left-center-right coalition that includes the pro-choice Democratic Sen.
Mary Landrieu, D-La., the Boston Women's Health Book Collective and the
anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee, the group that is running
the ads in Utah aimed at Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch.
   Hatch, a staunch anti-abortion vote, could hold the key in a closely
divided Senate. He says he finds it hard to tell parents of children
suffering from serious diseases that he isn't willing to allow all avenues
of research to proceed. But he is also troubled by the possibility that
harvest embryos could be implanted in women and used to produce cloned
newborns.
   Feinstein's backers include groups that fund research into a host of
diseases, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,
Stanford University and the University of California. The National Academy
of Sciences also opposes criminalizing the research.
   Reeve warned that if the total ban became law, research wouldn't stop, but
would be forced underground.
   "If we don't make this research legal, if we don't use government funding
and oversight, it will happen privately, dangerously, unregulated and
uncontrolled," Reeve told the committee.
   But Brownback and his allies say embryonic cloning has been over-hyped,
probably won't produce results and could easily be supplanted by adult
stem cell research or by Bush's approval of research using existing lines
of stem cells.
   Stuart Newman, a biologist from New York Medical College, warned the
senators that failed research on embryo stem cells would lead to calls to
allow these embryos to grow so that more advanced cells could be harvested
later on, "up to and including full-term clones from which to harvest
organs."
   Many pro-life supporters of Brownback's bill say that an embryo, no matter
how small, is a human life. But Feinstein says research centers on
unfertilized embryos that have had genetic material removed.
   "There is a right to live," she said. "This research can enrich that
right."
   E-mail Edward Epstein at  
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18711