Human Cloning:
The Bush Administration??¢â???¬â???¢s longstanding goal of banning human cloning is closer to reality, thanks to the 2004 election results. Yet new developments threaten to undermine anti-cloning efforts.
1) The legislative proposal to ban human cloning, backed by President Bush and sponsored in Congress by Sen. Sam Brownback (R.-Kan.) and Rep. Dave Weldon (R.-Fla.), has passed the U.S. House for two consecutive Congresses by more than 100 votes with bipartisan support. The problem has always been in the Senate, where the bill draws opposition from bipartisan proponents of experimental human cloning. Cloning is a necessity for capitalizing on any results that may someday emerge from embryonic stem cell research.
2) Based on votes and statements by the nine new senators??¢â???¬â???¢-elect, along with the stances of the departing nine, anti-cloning forces gained five seats in the Senate this year, putting them very close to an outright majority.
3) But on Friday, Stanford scientist Bill Hurlbut will address the President??¢â???¬â???¢s Council on Bioethics with an alternative proposal that could throw a monkey wrench into the works. By genetically manipulating human cells, Hurlbut hopes to perform a cloning-like procedure, but simultaneously prevent the clones??¢â???¬â???¢ proper embryonic formation. He claims that this would allow scientists to harvest stem cells without creating actual human clones. Others disagree, believing that the process simultaneously creates and destroys human clones for their stem cells.
4) Hurlbut, a respected conservative, is shopping his idea around to Washington conservatives in advance of his testimony, but it has received a chilly reception on Capitol Hill. Sources say he becomes evasive and defensive when it comes to his plan??¢â???¬â???¢s details. He has enlisted the aid of Princeton philosopher Robbie George, the conservative star on the bioethics commission.
5) Whatever its ethical merits, the proposal is very problematic from a political perspective. The cloning ban that has passed the U.S. House repeatedly and overwhelmingly, and which now could be close to passing the Senate, would make Hurlbut??¢â???¬â???¢s proposal illegal. It would be politically difficult to alter the congressional proposal significantly and still maintain strong bipartisan support. If Hurlbut??¢â???¬â???¢s idea gains traction on the Right, no cloning ban is likely to pass Congress.
6) Hurlbut??¢â???¬â???¢s proposal could fracture the anti-cloning movement??¢â???¬â???¢s three main constituencies: religious conservatives, feminists, and environmentalists. Religious conservatives will be split over Hurlbut??¢â???¬â???¢s contention that his process does not destroy human life. Environmentalists will reject his proposal as an unnatural genetic manipulation and commodification of the human species. Feminists, who oppose the exploitative use of poorer women as egg-donors, will take no comfort in Hurlbut??¢â???¬â???¢s process because like all cloning, it will require massive egg collection.
ANWR:
Plans are afoot in the Senate Energy Committee to push oil-drilling in the Arctic Natural Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) through the new, more conservative, Senate.
1) ANWR will be passed through budget reconciliation - a process that will allow the measure to pass with just 51 votes, not the 60 required to overcome a filibuster. The drilling proposal will be temporary, however, lasting only as long as the budget that passes Congress next year.
2) In this last election, pro-ANWR forces gained a net of three votes in the Senate. The last time the matter came up for a vote was March 2003, when the drilling proposal lost 52-48. One Republican senator in opposition said privately at the time that he would have voted for it, had his been the decisive vote.
3) The final decision on whether to use budget reconciliation language will be made once Senator Judd Gregg (R.-N.H.) takes up the gavel as chairman of the Budget Committee next year.
