January 17, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The first human clone
has not yet been born and may never be. But Jim Kallinger is thinking ahead.
The Florida state legislator last week filed a bill to give cloned children
the right to sue the scientists who create them, seeking money to cover
living expenses, medical costs and emotional damages.
In Wisconsin, sponsors of a broad
anti-cloning bill claim support from 41 of the 99 members of the state
Assembly. In Kentucky, a committee of the state House on Wednesday approved
a bill to ban human cloning.
State anti-cloning bills, which are
also on the agenda in California, Massachusetts, Colorado and elsewhere,
are a measure of the broad national unease with the prospect of human cloning.
But they also reflect another fear: that Congress will fail to act. There
is strong support in Washington for a ban on cloning to produce children.
But the House last year voted to bar it as a tool of disease research as
well.
Some senators, by contrast, say a
ban should not cover researchers who aim to produce cloned embryos for
their stem cells--the medically valuable cells that may help cure a range
of diseases.
With a Senate vote expected within
weeks, a new bioethics advisory panel appointed by President Bush will
put cloning at the top of its agenda when it holds its first meeting today.
The White House announced the 17 members of the panel Wednesday. Although
the council has no regulatory powers, its deliberations could influence
Congress.
Still, some state officials fear
that federal legislation may sink altogether. "I'd rather be safe than
sorry. Who knows how long it will take Congress to push a law through?"
said Kallinger, a Republican from the Orlando area.
"Who's to say there's not a cloned
embryo in a womb somewhere in the country now, and a clone is going to
be born?" he said. "I don't think we're looking at science fiction anymore."
Kentucky state Rep. Joseph Fischer,
a Republican and sponsor of a measure to ban human cloning for any purpose,
said Kentucky has to be prepared in case the courts rule that cloning is
a matter for state and not federal regulation. Fischer noted that the Supreme
Court has said Congress had no authority to ban guns near schools because
the issue does not involve interstate commerce.
In Washington, conservative groups
are trying to build pressure for a quick Senate vote on the House's broad
cloning ban. Some are lobbying Bush to use his State of the Union address
Jan. 29 to call on senators to pass the House measure.
A new anti-cloning group, led by
Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard magazine, says it is trying
to raise money for advertisements supporting the House's total ban. The
ads would run in the states of undecided senators.
Prospects in the Senate are uncertain,
in part because cloning is so new. "With most issues, there are well-established
battle lines," said Kristol, whose group is called Stop Human Cloning.
"People have well-defined points of view. But this is an issue of first
impression in politics. . . . I think it's a very fluid situation."
Fourteen senators are sponsoring
legislation to ban cloning completely. Violators would face jail terms
of up to 10 years and fines of $1 million.
Ten senators have said they want
to allow cloning in disease research and treatment, often called therapeutic
cloning, while banning it to produce children. They include California's
Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats.
The two sides may be irreconcilable.
Research and patient-advocacy groups
envision a day when a patient would be cloned to produce an embryo, which
would be dissected at about five days of age for its stem cells. The stem
cells, in turn, would be grown into heart, brain or other tissue that matches
the patient's genes exactly, avoiding the tissue rejection problems that
are common in organ transplants.
Scientists face a variety of hurdles
in creating a cloning-based cure for disease, but some are hopeful. "A
ban on therapeutic cloning would delay the discovery of potentially life-saving
treatments," said Chis Paladino of the National Health Council, which represents
120 patient advocacy groups and disease-related charities.
Opponents say it is wrong to allow
scientists to create human life only to destroy it, even to help ailing
patients.
Bush's new bioethics advisory council
is led by Dr. Leon Kass, a doctor and bioethicist who favors a total ban
on human cloning. They include an eminent political scientist from UCLA,
professor emeritus James Q. Wilson.
Also on the panel are theologians,
lawyers and scientists.
One prominent bioethicist, Arthur
Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania, said the panel includes "many
smart people," but appears weighted toward a conservative view of cloning,
stem cell research and other controversial elements of biotechnology.
"This president is pro-life, anti-cloning
and anti-stem cell research, and this group will do nothing to shake up
those views," Caplan said.
In the states, the legislative debate
mirrors the division in Congress. Wisconsin lawmakers, for example, are
considering three measures, including one that would totally ban cloning
and one that would ban reproductive cloning but allow therapeutic cloning.
In California, home to many biotechnology
companies, a ban on reproductive cloning expires at the end of this year.
In a report presented Monday, an advisory panel told the state Legislature
that the reproductive ban should be renewed but that therapeutic cloning
should be permitted.
The proposal in Florida may be the
most far-reaching. It would ban human cloning for any purpose. The measure
would also allow any cloned person to move to the state and use its courts
to sue the people involved in his or her creation, whether or not it occurred
in Florida.
The goals of the bill, Kallinger
said, are to make sure that a child born through cloning is not abandoned,
and to create a disincentive for scientists to take up cloning.
Scientists would be liable for schooling,
medical and other expenses of the child, even some costs that continue
after the child is grown. Clones, their relatives and estates could also
sue for emotional distress and other injuries.
"This sends a message around the
world, or as far as Florida courts can reach, to scientists trying to clone
humans," Kallinger said. "A scientist might say, 'I'm not going to clone,
because the state of Florida says I'll have parental responsibilities.'
"
"A lot of this is hypothetical,"
he acknowledged. "This whole debate is really something else. But you have
to plan for the worst-case scenario." At least two teams have publicly
announced plans to try to clone a person, but their capabilities are unclear.
Cheye Calvo, who runs the genetic
technologies project at the National Conference of State Legislatures,
said that more bills will be filed as this year's legislative sessions
progress. He said many lawmakers are reacting to the recent announcement
by a Massachusetts company, Advanced Cell Technology Inc., that it had
created cloned human embryos that grew for three days.
But state cloning proposals have
often failed. Six states considered legislation last year, but only Virginia
passed a ban, Calvo said. In 1997, just after the birth of Dolly, the cloned
sheep, 23 states considered bans but only California passed one.
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
By AARON ZITNER, TIMES STAFF WRITER