We write to state our support for the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001, S. 790, introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and co-sponsored by Senators Robert F. Bennett, Christopher S. Bond, Jim Bunning, Michael DeWine, John E. Ensign, Jesse Helms, Tim Hutchinson, James M. Inhofe, Jon Kyl, Jeff Sessions, Richard C. Shelby, Bob Smith, and Gordon Smith.

Our principle objection is that no human being should be treated as a means to an end, rather that human beings must be treated as an end in and of themselves. Yet efforts to clone a human being amounts to making a new human being a means to an end whether as an organ bank, a curiosity piece, a testament to the power of science or some sort of super industrial worker. Of course, we sometimes fail and have failed to respect this moral principle in our own lives and laws but that is no excuse for failing to respect it now.

Further, one of our many pragmatic objections to cloning is based on a recent study by researchers at MIT and the University of Hawaii (reported in the July 6th, 2001 issue of Science). The researchers found that the tags that switch on imprinted genes are not faithfully reproduced from donor to clone. This explains the low embryo survival rate and the chronic medical problems of clones. It also confirms the fear that reproductive cloning is unsafe. Indeed, the tags’ instability lies in the genes themselves because the researchers used two different cloning methods and obtained the same results. This means that cloning will not give us a second Einstein but rather maybe the first real Frankenstein.

Sincerely,