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Here, Kitty-Kitty-Kitty-Kitty Sausalito firm offers clones for $50,000, signs up 5 cat owners By Carolyn Said San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 2004

1 It sounds like science fiction, but it’s not.

2 Any cat owner with $50,000 to spare can pay a Sausalito company, Genetic Savings & Clone, to clone Fluffy or Frisky this year.

3 The company already sponsored the first domestic cat clone—a calico named CC (for “Carbon Copy”)—two years ago. Now, it is the first to go commercial, this time in its own laboratories, and five paying customers are lined up.

4 It has promised to produce nine cloned kittens by November. Six will be for clients and three for staff members, who will show off their clones at veterinary shows. None of the customers agreed to be interviewed.

5 The company got its start when iconoclastic octogenarian John Sperling, who made millions as founder of the University of Phoenix, backed research called “the Missyplicity Project” to clone a beloved husky mix, Missy.

6 The project was deluged by interested pet lovers, even though dog cloning continues to elude scientists. Genetic Savings says it is on track to clone Missy, who died in 2002 at age 15, this year.

7 “We would have had to be dumb not to see a business there,” said Genetic Savings CEO Lou Hawthorne, a longtime family friend of Sperling, who suggested they turn the project into a for-profit venture.

8 Hawthorne is cloning his own pet, Tahini, a 6-month-old Bengal cat who likes to stalk deer in her Mill Valley backyard.

9 Hawthorne says he thinks the world is packed with pet lovers eager to follow suit. Studies show that a quarter of the 60 million pet-owning households would consider cloning their furry friends, he says. Genetic Savings hopes to be cloning thousands of pets annually in five years, when the cost should be down to $10,000 for cats, $20,000 for dogs, he says.

10 “A great pet is like a work of art, especially if it’s a one-of-a-kind mixed breed,” Hawthorne said. “To replicate these qualities adds to the sum of joy in the world.”

11 But critics say that’s faulty logic.

12 “Cloning undermines the sacred and intrinsic value of what a unique life is all about in the world,” said Jeremy Rifkin, author of “Biotech Century,” a cautionary work about the Pandora’s box that scientific advances like cloning might open.

13 “We just had a German shepherd who passed away, who was the love of our life,” Rifkin said, speaking for himself and his wife. “We’d love to see that dog again, but we would never clone it. It would be a complete betrayal of our unique relationship with that beautiful companion animal to clone another animal from it.”

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14 David Magnus, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University, agreed.

15 “My cocker spaniel, who we had for 15 years, just passed away, and I would do anything to have him back and young again, but it can’t happen,” he said.

16 “The people who want this are spending huge sums of money to get their pet immortalized or to guarantee they’re getting a pet exactly like the one they had before, and it’s simply not possible,” Magnus said.

17 Despite the criticisms, animal cloning is legal in the United States, although human cloning is not.

18 To be sure, Genetic Savings & Clone sounds straight out of the Arnold Schwarzenegger techno thriller “The 6th Day,” set in the year 2010, in which a pet- cloning company called RePet was as ubiquitous as Kinko’s.

19 Hawthorne, 43, a Princeton grad and former multimedia producer with a mop of salt-and-pepper curls and a quick wit woven with whimsy, is quick to correct misperceptions.

20 Unlike the fictional RePet, his company will produce unique, newborn animals, not full-grown exact replicas, he said. A cloned animal will have its own personality and memories. It will closely resemble the original animal in physical appearance and behavioral tendencies. The company says it will never experiment with human cloning.

21 He pointed to some potential benefits for society: cloning working animals, such as seeing-eye dogs and search-and-rescue dogs.

22 Cloning is not a substitute for the grieving process, Hawthorne said. It’s best suited for mutts—“a breed of one”—which are past breeding age or spayed or neutered.

23 Several hundred people have signed up to have Genetic Savings preserve tissue from their cat or dog for future cloning. They pay about $900 plus $150 a year for maintenance. Cells are harvested through a skin biopsy done by a veterinarian, who removes a pencil-eraser-sized skin sample from the pet’s belly and from inside its mouth.

24 Menlo Park resident Jayne Lange, 47, has banked tissue from two Shiba Inu dogs, one still living and one deceased. The breed evolved from ancient Japanese fighting dogs, she said. “They tend to be fiercely loyal and are very cute little dogs, red with a curly tail,” she said.

25 She was motivated to do it for her three teenage children.

26 “It’s almost like creating a family tradition,” she said. “We love our dogs so much. If at some future point my children thought back about Akeya and wanted a dog like it, they’d have the opportunity.”

27 Tom Minot, 56, a vice president of marketing at a Silicon Valley company, also used the word “family” in describing why he banked tissue from his dog, Fred, an 8-year- old Australian shepherd and border collie mix.

28 “I’m single, and he’s my family,” Minot said. “He’s an exceptional dog.”

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29 The world’s first cloned cat, CC, by contrast, is just a regular cat, according to her owner, Duane Kraemer, a professor of veterinary medicine who was on the Texas A&M team that cloned her.

30 “She’s a very good house pet,” he said. Kraemer hopes to breed her—the old- fashioned way—“whenever we find a worthy male.”

31 CC also demonstrates some limits of cloning. As Hawthorne ruefully said, the calico cat is “a problem child, the first clone that doesn’t resemble its genetic mom.”

32 Calicos are essentially a three-dimensional mosaic of two cell types, one with genes for black-and-white coat patterns, the other with genes for orange and white. Because CC was cloned from a single cell, she got only the black- and-white gene, unlike her “mom,” the typical calico mix of both types.

33 Genetic Savings is no longer affiliated with Texas A&M. Instead, it has its own labs in Austin, Texas, and San Diego, and it plans one in Madison, Wis.

34 Sperling’s deep pockets have helped Genetic Savings vault ahead of competitors. So far, it has spent $10 million and expects to spend another $5 million by the time it breaks even, which Hawthorne predicts will be next year.

35 Its scientists use the cloning procedure familiar to the world since Dolly the sheep was born in 1997: They take the nucleus of a cell from the original animal and inject it into an egg whose own nucleus has been removed. (Eggs are purchased from spay clinics.) The resulting embryo is then implanted into a surrogate mother.

36 Most cloning failures occur either in the test tube, if the egg and cell fail to develop, or shortly after implantation, if the embryo is spontaneously aborted. It took 87 tries to produce CC, for example, Kraemer said.

37 Genetic Savings has licensed an innovation, already used in cattle cloning, that it says increases the success rate. The technique, called chromatin transfer, removes all the “adult factors” associated with the cell to be transferred, essentially regressing that cell back to an embryonic stage. That means the egg doesn’t have to do the extra work of reprogramming the donor cell into an embryo.

38 Not surprisingly, pet metaphors seem to creep into Hawthorne’s speech. “I’m like a pit bull. I can be relentless in focusing until the problem can be resolved,” he said. The intense public interest in his business makes it “like working in a fishbowl.”

39 As for his company’s success: “The proof is in the puddy-cat.”

______

Cloning kitty

1. Cloning process begins with a tissue biopsy from the cat to be cloned.

2. The sample is cultured and cells are frozen.

3. A host cat’s egg is enucleated, meaning the genetic material is removed.

4. The host cat’s cell is treated to remove differentiation. Differentiation is when cells are assigned to develop specialized functions such as muscle cells, neurons or skin cells.

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5. The treated donor cell is combined with the enucleated egg by electrofusion, resulting in a singlecelled cloned embryo.

6. The surrogate mother cat, in estrus, has the cloned embryos implanted in her oviduct.

7. The surrogate mother carries the pregnancy to term, giving birth to cloned kittens.

Source: Genetic Savings & Clone

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Cloning Is Moral By Alex Epstein (Herald Sun, Australia, November 19, 2003)

1 Biotechnological progress, long under moral and legal attack, was granted a two-year reprieve last Thursday when the United Nations announced that it is postponing consideration of an international ban on human cloning. Members of that body have been fiercely divided between those, including the United States, who seek to ban all cloning internationally, and those who seek to ban "only" reproductive cloning. Although each side has claimed the moral high ground, both positions are profoundly immoral. Any attempt to ban human cloning technology should be rejected permanently, because cloning--therapeutic and reproductive--is morally good. 2 Consider first therapeutic cloning, which opponents perversely condemn as "anti-life." Senator Sam Brownback, who has sponsored a Congressional ban on all cloning, says therapeutic cloning is "creating human life to destroy [it]." President Bush calls it "growing human beings for spare body parts." 3 In fact, therapeutic cloning is a highly pro-life technology, since cloned embryos can be used to extract medically potent embryonic stem cells. A cloned embryo is created by inserting the nucleus of a human body cell into a denucleated egg, which is then induced to divide until it reaches the embryo stage. These embryos are not human beings, but microscopic bits of protoplasm the width of a human hair. They have the potential to grow into human beings, but actual human beings are the ones dying for lack of this technology. The embryonic stem cells extracted from a cloned embryo can become any other type of human cell. In the future, they may be used to develop pancreatic cells for curing diabetes, cardiac muscle cells for curing heart disease, brain cells for curing Alzheimer's--or even entire new organs for transplantation. "There's not an area of medicine that this technology will not potentially impact," says Nobel laureate Harold Varmus. 4 Opponents of therapeutic cloning know all this, but are unmoved. This is because their fundamental objection is not that therapeutic cloning is antilife, but that it entails "playing God"--i.e., remaking nature to serve human purposes. "[Human cloning] would be taking a major step into making man himself simply another one of the man-made things," says Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics. "Human nature becomes merely the last part of nature to succumb to the technological project, which turns all of nature into raw material at human disposal." Columnist Armstrong Williams condemns all cloning as "human egotism, or the desire to exert our will over every aspect of our surroundings," and cautions: "We're not God." 5 The one truth in the anticloning position is that cloning does represent "the desire to exert our will over every aspect of our surroundings." But such a desire is not immoral- -it is a mark of virtue. Using technology to alter nature is a requirement of human life. It is what brought man from the cave to civilization. Where would we be without the men who "exerted their will" over their surroundings and constructed the first hut, cottage, and skyscraper? Every advance in human history is part of "the technological project," and has made man's life longer, healthier, and happier. These advances are produced

CSU EXPOSITORY READING AND WRITING MODULES TO CLONE OR NOT TO CLONE by those who hold the premise that suffering and disease are a curse, not to be humbly accepted as "God's will," but to be fought proudly with all the power of man's rational mind. 6 The same virtue applies to reproductive cloning--which, despite the ridiculous, horror- movie scenarios conjured up by its opponents, would simply result in time-separated twins just as human as anyone else. Once it becomes safe, reproductive cloning will have legitimate uses for infertile couples and for preventing the transmission of genetic diseases. Even more important, it is significant as an early form of a tremendous value: genetic engineering, which most anticloners object to because as such it entails "playing God" with the genetic makeup of one's child. At stake with reproductive cloning is not only whether you can conceive a child who shares your genetic makeup, but whether you have the right to improve the genetic makeup of your children: to prevent them from getting genetic diseases, to prolong their lifespan or to improve their physical appearance. You should have such rights just as you have the right to vaccinate your children or to fit them with braces. 7 The mentalities that denounce cloning and "playing God" have consistently opposed technological progress, especially in medicine. They objected to anesthesia, smallpox inoculations, contraception, heart transplants, in vitro fertilization--on the grounds that these innovations were "unnatural" and contrary to God's will. To let them cripple biotechnological progress by banning cloning would be a moral abomination.

Epstein, Alex. “Cloning Is Moral.” Ayn Rand Ceter for Individual Rights. Ayn Rand Institute, 29 Feb. 2004. Web. 24 Jan. 2014. < .

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Reasons to Clone Human Beings by Simon Smith, Human Cloning Foundation

1 Medical breakthroughs - Human cloning technology is expected to result in several miraculous medical breakthroughs. We may be able to cure cancer if cloning leads to a better understanding of cell differentiation. Theories exist about how cloning may lead to a cure for heart attacks, a revolution in cosmetic surgery, organs for organ transplantation, and predictions abound about how cloning technology will save thousands of lives. You can read about many of the expected medical benefits in the essay "The Benefits of Human Cloning."

2 Medical tragedies - Many people have suffered accidental medical tragedies during their lifetimes. Read about a girl who needs a kidney, a burn victim, a girl born with cosmetic deformities, a man who needs a liver, a woman who is infertile because of cancer, and a father who lost his only son. All these people favor cloning and want the science to proceed.

3 To cure infertility - Infertile people are discriminated against. Men are made to feel like they are not "real men." Women are made to feel as if they are useless barren vessels. Worse, being infertile is often not considered a "real medical problem" and insurance companies and governments are not sympathetic. The current options for infertile couples are painful, expensive, and heart- breaking. Cloning has the potential to change the world for infertile couples almost overnight.

4 To fund research - People whose lives have been destroyed or have not been able to reproduce in this lifetime due to tragedy could arrange to have their DNA continued and fund research at the same time. For example: A boy graduates from high school at age 18. He goes to a pool party to celebrate. He confuses the deep end and shallow end and dives head first into the pool, breaking his neck and becoming a quadriplegic. At age 19 he has his first urinary tract infection because of an indwelling urinary catheter and continues to suffer from them the rest of his life. At age 20 he comes down with herpes zoster of the trigeminal nerve. He suffers chronic unbearable pain. At age 21 he inherits a 10 million dollar trust fund. He never marries or has children. At age 40 after hearing about Dolly being a clone, he changes his will and has his DNA stored for future human cloning. His future mother will be awarded one million dollars to have him and raise him. His DNA clone will inherit a trust fund. He leaves five million to spinal cord research. He dies feeling that although he was robbed of normal life, his twin/clone will lead a better life.

5 Bad parents - Did your parents destroy your life? Were they alcoholic, child- beating molesters? Did you never have a chance? Interestingly, human cloning allows you the opportunity to participate in choosing the parents for your clone.

6 A Child's right to be better than its parents - It's been suggested that parents have a duty to see that their children have better lives than they do. This may mean making our children live longer, helping them to be resistant to cancer, heart disease, any familial diseases, and all the other problems that can be cured using what we learn from human cloning technology.

7 To take a step towards immortality - Human cloning essentially means taking a human being's DNA and reversing its age back to zero. Dr. Richard Seed, one of cloning's leading proponents, hopes that cloning will help us understand how to reverse DNA back to age 20 or whatever age we want to be. Cloning would be a step towards a fountain of youth.

8 To make a future couple financially secure - With human cloning you could give a couple in the future both a child from your DNA and the financial assets from your lifetime to start out financially secure instead of struggling as most couples do now.

9 Because you believe in freedom - Freedom sometimes means having tolerance for others and their beliefs. In America, some people believe gun control and some don't. Some people believe in one religion and others in another. In a free society we know that we must tolerate some views that we don't agree with so that we all may be free. For this reason human cloning should be allowed.

10 To be a better parent - Human cloning can improve the parent-child relationship. Raising a clone would be like having a child with an instruction manual. You would have a head start on the needs and talents of your child. We are not saying that a clone would be a carbon copy with no individuality. Our talents and desires are genetic, developmental, and environmental. We would have a head start on understanding the genetic component of a cloned child.

11 Endangered species could be saved - Through the research leading up to human cloning we will perfect the technology to clone animals, and thus we could forever preserve endangered species, including human beings.

12 Animals and plants could be cloned for medical purposes - Through the research leading up to human cloning, we should discover how to clone animals and plants to produce life-saving medications.

13 You want your clone to lead the life that was meant to be yours - The Human Cloning Foundation has been surprised by the number of people that write to say that they would like to have a clone so that it may lead the life that was meant to be theirs. Typically, these are people who have suffered some terrible physical or

CSU EXPOSITORY READING AND WRITING MODULES TO CLONE OR NOT TO CLONE 2 mental handicap and feel robbed of the opportunities they should have had in life. Some see this life as a sacrifice so that the life of their clone may be enriched.

14 To have a better sense of identity - If we had some information about ourselves, perhaps we could sooner or better discovery who we are. A clone would have access to a tremendous amount of information about his or her parent that could greatly help in understanding one's psyche and physical attributes. All of this information could provide a better sense of identity.

15 Because so many people want cloning - Please read the dozens of essays by people from all over the world in support of human cloning and published by the Human Cloning Foundation.

16 Religious Freedom - At least two religions, the Raelian Religion and the Summum Religion, believe in cloning as one of their tenets.

17 Because of the special relationship that twins have - Twins often have very special relationships. While many people go through their lives never having a special relationship with another person, there are stories of twins in which they are so close they are perhaps psychically connected. More than one person has written the Human Cloning Foundation (including a twin that feels close to her identical twin) that since a clone is virtually the equivalent of an identical twin, they suspect a very special relationship would exist between a clone and its DNA parent. Some twins describe their twin relationship as more wonderful and meaningful any other relationship in their lives.

18 Economics - Countries that fail to research human cloning will suffer economically. The industrial revolution and Internet revolutions enriched the United States of America. Biotechnology will lead the next economic revolution. Those countries that jump in first will reap the rewards. Those who fail to begin research right away will fall behind. As an example: Japan failed to jump on the Internet bandwagon and is now playing catch-up. Japan has banned human cloning and will probably suffer by falling behind during the biotech revolution. One day in the not too far distant future, Japan may realize its mistake.

19 Gay couples - From one of our readers: "gay couples go through so much...not to mention all the controversy...when they decide that they are ready for a baby. People question their right to bring a child that technically isn't related to them into a lifestyle that falls below societies views of normal.....human cloning could allow two gay men to take 23 chromosomes from each male and put them into a single egg to truly have a baby of their own. also two gay women could use this technology to conceive a child of their own using their individual 23 chromosomes." (To our knowledge the type of reproduction described here has not yet been done, but someday it will probably be possible.)

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20 A cure for baldness - From one of our readers: "But how about the possibility of using cloning technology to get more hair on a balding scalp. For example cloning can be used to get more hair from a few sample hair follicles or grafts from the patient's head and then grow them....later transplant the grafts where it is needed. This will eliminate the need to do an incision in back of the scalp for donor hair and will literally give the patient MORE hair."

21 Because the sick will demand it - Those resisting human cloning research will probably find themselves shouted down by the sick and the maimed who desperately need such research. Human cloning technology promises to cure many or all incurable diseases and the moral weight of the dying and infirm will undoubtedly sway the politicians more than the arguments of the healthy, who often remain ignorant of the potential of human cloning, because they have never been motivated by suffering to look desperately for a cure.

22 Hope - On the Charlie Rose television show on February 14th, 2001, three anti- cloners debated against one reporter. The anti-cloners made the case for stem cell research while alleging that cloning itself would not result in any major scientific breakthroughs. It is likely that the anti-cloners are quite wrong. Learning the process of reprogramming, differentiation, and dedifferentiation is likely to result in just as many medical miracles as stem cell research. The two lines of research go hand in hand and should complement each other. The three anti-cloners came across as people who would destroy hope. The kept alleging that things were impossible. They reminded me of the same types of people who proclaimed that cloning was impossible years ago. Furthermore, they seemed happy and willing to take away the hope of infertile couples and others with severe diseases that human cloning technology might one day lessen their suffering or save their lives. The anti-cloners also seemed to feel that they had the ability to predict the timing and course of science advancement, which history has shown to be folly.

23 Living on through a later-born twin - Some childless people feel that by being cloned by their later-born twin would help them or their DNA to live on in the same sense that people who have children live on.

Copyright © 2002 Human Cloning Foundation. All rights are reserved. This is the official website of the Human Cloning FoundationTM Online since 2/26/1998.

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President Bush Calls on Senate to Back Human Cloning Ban Remarks by the President on Human Cloning Legislation, The East Room

April 10, 2002 1:18 P.M. EDT

1 THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you all so very much for coming to the White House. It's my honor to welcome you to the people's house. 2 I particularly want to honor three folks who I had the honor of meeting earlier: Joni Tada, Jim Kelly and Steve McDonald. I want to thank you for your courage, I want to thank you for your wisdom, I want to thank you for your extraordinary perseverence and faith. They have triumphed in the face of physical disability and share a deep commitment to medicine that is practiced ethically and humanely. 3 All of us here today believe in the promise of modern medicine. We're hopeful about where science may take us. And we're also here because we believe in the principles of ethical medicine. 4 As we seek to improve human life, we must always preserve human dignity. (Applause.) And therefore, we must prevent human cloning by stopping it before it starts. (Applause.) 5 I want to welcome Tommy Thompson, who is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a man who is doing a fine job for America. (Applause.) I want to thank members from the United States Congress, members from both political parties who are here. I particularly want to thank Senator Brownback and Senator Landrieu for sponsoring a bill about which I'm going to speak. (Applause.) 6 As well, we've got Senator Frist and Senator Bond and Senator Hutchinson and Senator Santorum and Congressman Weldon, Stupak, and eventually Smith and Kerns. They just don't realize -- (applause) -- thank you all for coming -- they seem to have forgotten we start things on time here in the White House. (Laughter.) 7 We live in a time of tremendous medical progress. A little more than a year ago, scientists first cracked the human genetic code -- one of the most important advances in scientific history. Already, scientists are developing new diagnostic tools so that each of us can know our risk of disease and act to prevent them. 8 One day soon, precise therapies will be custom made for our own genetic makeup. We're on the threshold of historic breakthroughs against AIDS and Alzheimer's Disease and cancer and diabetes and heart disease and Parkinson's Disease. And that's incredibly positive. 9 Our age may be known to history as the age of genetic medicine, a time when many of the most feared illnesses were overcome. 10 Our age must also be defined by the care and restraint and responsibility with which we take up these new scientific powers. 11 Advances in biomedical technology must never come at the expense of human conscience. (Applause.) As we seek what is possible, we must always ask what is

CSU EXPOSITORY READING AND WRITING MODULES TO CLONE OR NOT TO CLONE right, and we must not forget that even the most noble ends do not justify any means. (Applause.) 12 Science has set before us decisions of immense consequence. We can pursue medical research with a clear sense of moral purpose or we can travel without an ethical compass into a world we could live to regret. Science now presses forward the issue of human cloning. How we answer the question of human cloning will place us on one path or the other. 13 Human cloning is the laboratory production of individuals who are genetically identical to another human being. Cloning is achieved by putting the genetic material from a donor into a woman's egg, which has had its nucleus removed. As a result, the new or cloned embryo is an identical copy of only the donor. Human cloning has moved from science fiction into science. 14 One biotech company has already began producing embryonic human clones for research purposes. Chinese scientists have derived stem cells from cloned embryos created by combining human DNA and rabbit eggs. Others have announced plans to produce cloned children, despite the fact that laboratory cloning of animals has lead to spontaneous abortions and terrible, terrible abnormalities. 15 Human cloning is deeply troubling to me, and to most Americans. Life is a creation, not a commodity. (Applause.) Our children are gifts to be loved and protected, not products to be designed and manufactured. Allowing cloning would be taking a significant step toward a society in which human beings are grown for spare body parts, and children are engineered to custom specifications; and that's not acceptable. 16 In the current debate over human cloning, two terms are being used: reproductive cloning and research cloning. Reproductive cloning involves creating a cloned embryo and implanting it into a woman with the goal of creating a child. Fortunately, nearly every American agrees that this practice should be banned. Research cloning, on the other hand, involves the creation of cloned human embryos which are then destroyed to derive stem cells. 17 I believe all human cloning is wrong, and both forms of cloning ought to be banned, for the following reasons. First, anything other than a total ban on human cloning would be unethical. Research cloning would contradict the most fundamental principle of medical ethics, that no human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another. (Applause.) 18 Yet a law permitting research cloning, while forbidding the birth of a cloned child, would require the destruction of nascent human life. Secondly, anything other than a total ban on human cloning would be virtually impossible to enforce. Cloned human embryos created for research would be widely available in laboratories and embryo farms. Once cloned embryos were available, implantation would take place. Even the tightest regulations and strict policing would not prevent or detect the birth of cloned babies.

CSU EXPOSITORY READING AND WRITING MODULES TO CLONE OR NOT TO CLONE 2 19 Third, the benefits of research cloning are highly speculative. Advocates of research cloning argue that stem cells obtained from cloned embryos would be injected into a genetically identical individual without risk of tissue rejection. But there is evidence, based on animal studies, that cells derived from cloned embryos may indeed be rejected. 20 Yet even if research cloning were medically effective, every person who wanted to benefit would need an embryonic clone of his or her own, to provide the designer tissues. This would create a massive national market for eggs and egg donors, and exploitation of women's bodies that we cannot and must not allow. (Applause.) 21 I stand firm in my opposition to human cloning. And at the same time, we will pursue other promising and ethical ways to relieve suffering through biotechnology. This year for the first time, federal dollars will go towards supporting human embryonic stem cell research consistent with the ethical guidelines I announced last August. 22 The National Institutes of Health is also funding a broad range of animal and human adult stem cell research. Adult stem cells which do not require the destruction of human embryos and which yield tissues which can be transplanted without rejection are more versatile that originally thought. 23 We're making progress. We're learning more about them. And therapies developed from adult stem cells are already helping suffering people. 24 I support increasing the research budget of the NIH, and I ask Congress to join me in that support. And at the same time, I strongly support a comprehensive law against all human cloning. And I endorse the bill -- wholeheartedly endorse the bill -- sponsored by Senator Brownback and Senator Mary Landrieu. (Applause.) 25 This carefully drafted bill would ban all human cloning in the United States, including the cloning of embryos for research. It is nearly identical to the bipartisan legislation that last year passed the House of Representatives by more than a 100-vote margin. It has wide support across the political spectrum, liberals and conservatives support it, religious people and nonreligious people support it. Those who are pro-choice and those who are pro-life support the bill. 26 This is a diverse coalition, united by a commitment to prevent the cloning and exploitation of human beings. (Applause.) It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber. (Applause.) 27 I'm an incurable optimist about the future of our country. I know we can achieve great things. We can make the world more peaceful, we can become a more compassionate nation. We can push the limits of medical science. I truly believe that we're going to bring hope and healing to countless lives across the country. And as we do, I will insist that we always maintain the highest of ethical standards. Thank you all for coming. (Applause.) God bless.

The White House, Office of the Press Secretary. President Bush Calls on Senate to Back Human Cloning Ban: Remarks by the President on Human Cloning Legislation. The White House, 10 Apr. 2002. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. .

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Remarks By President Clinton At Announcement Of Cloning Legislation

The Rose Garden June 9, 1997, 11:56 P.M. EDT

1 THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Dr. Shapiro, for that fine set of remarks and for your report. I thank all the members of the President's Committee of Advisors. I'd also like to thank Secretary Shalala and Dr. Varmus for being here today, along with the President's Advisor on Science and Technology, Dr. Jack Gibbons. And I thank Congressman Brown and Congresswoman Morella for being here and for their interest in this important issue. 2 But mostly let me say again, I am profoundly grateful to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and to Dr. Harold Shapiro for preparing this report on a difficult topic in a short period of time, requiring an extensive inquiry. Your commitment and your courage in breaking new ground in policy is deeply appreciated. 3 As the Vice President has said and all of us know, we live in an era of breath-taking scientific discovery. More and more, our future in the world depends upon advances in science and technology. And more and more, the scientific community will influence the course of the future and the lives that our children will lead in the new century that is upon us. 4 As I said in my commencement address at Morgan State University last month, our scientific explorations must be guided by our commitment to human values, to the good of society, to our basic sense of right and wrong. Nothing makes the necessity of that moral obligation more clear than the troubling possibility that these new animal-cloning techniques could be used to create a child. That is why I acted in March to ban the use of federal funds for cloning human beings and to urge the private sector to observe the ban voluntarily while we initiated a national dialogue on the risks and the responsibilities of such a possibility, and why I asked this commission to issue this report. 5 For three months, the commission has rigorously explored the scientific, moral, and spiritual dimensions of human cloning. It has talked to leading scientists and religious leaders, to philosophers and families, to patient advocates and to the general public. From many opinions and beliefs, as Dr. Shapiro said, one unanimous conclusion has emerged: Attempting to clone a human being is unacceptably dangerous to the child and morally unacceptable to our society. 6 I believe strongly that this conclusion reflects a national consensus, and I believe personally that it is the right thing to do. Today I am sending legislation to the Congress that prohibits anyone in either public or private sectors from using these techniques to create a child. Until the day I sign the legislation into law, the ban on federal funding I declared in March will remain in effect. And once again, I call upon

CSU EXPOSITORY READING AND WRITING MODULES TO CLONE OR NOT TO CLONE the private sector to refrain voluntarily from using this technology to attempt to clone a human being. 7 I want to make clear that there is nothing inherently immoral or wrong with these new techniques -- used for proper purposes. In fact, they hold the promise of revolutionary new medical treatments and life-saving cures to diseases like cystic fibrosis, diabetes and cancer, to better crops and stronger livestock. 8 This legislation, therefore, will not prohibit the use of these techniques to clone DNA in cells and it will not ban the cloning of animals. What the legislation will do is to reaffirm our most cherished belief about the miracle of human life and the God-given individuality each person possesses. It will ensure that we do not fall prey to the temptation to replicate ourselves at the expense of those beliefs and the lives of innocent children we would produce. 9 Finally, the legislation will ensure that we continue the national dialogue we began three months ago and will provide the nation and the Congress another opportunity to take a look at this issue in five years. 10 To make sure that all our voices are heard as we explore human cloning, the legislation specifically requires the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to continue its study and report back in four and a half years. At that time, we will decide how to proceed based on what has been accomplished and agreed upon and debated and discovered in the intervening period. 11 Banning human cloning reflects our humanity. It is the right thing to do. Creating a child through this new method calls into question our most fundamental beliefs. It has the potential to threaten the sacred family bonds at the very core of our ideals and our society. At its worst, it could lead to misguided and malevolent attempts to select certain traits, even to create certain kind of children -- to make our children objects rather than cherished individuals. 12 We are still a long way from understanding all the implications of the present discoveries, but it is our moral obligation to confront these issues as they arise and to act now to prevent abuse. Today, I hope other countries will see what we are doing and do the same. And I pledge to work with them to enforce similar bans around the world that reflect these values. 13 Once again, let me say a heartfelt thank you on behalf of our entire nation to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission for the remarkable work you have done and the work you have agreed to continue doing in the coming years. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

The White House, Office of the Press Secretary. Remarks by the President at Announcement of Cloning Legislation. The White House, 9 June 1997. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

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Arguments Against Creating Human Clones Center for Genetics and Society

1 Human cloning would foster an understanding of children, and of people in general, as objects that can be designed and manufactured to possess specific characteristics. 2 Human cloning would diminish the sense of uniqueness of an individual. It would violate deeply and widely held convictions concerning human individuality and freedom, could lead to a devaluation of clones in comparison with non-clones. 3 Cloned children would unavoidably be raised "in the shadow" of their nuclear donor, in a way that would strongly tend to constrain individual psychological and social development. 4 Human cloning is inherently unsafe. 95-98% of mammalian cloning experiments have resulted in failures in the form of miscarriages, stillbirths, and life-threatening anomalies. It could not be developed without putting the physical safety of the clones and the women who bear them at grave risk. 5 If human cloning is permitted to happen and becomes accepted, it is difficult to see how any other dangerous applications of genetic engineering technology could be proscribed.

Center for Genetics and Society. “Arguments For and Against Creating Human Clones.” Reproductive Cloning Arguments. Center for Geneticcs and Society, 3 June 2003. Web. 24 Jan. 2014. .

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Why Clone? The Genetic Science Learning Center, University of Utah

1 Our experiences have told us that, with a little work, we humans can clone just about anything we want, from frogs to sheep—and probably even ourselves. 2 So we can clone things. But why would we want to? Below are some of the ways in which cloning might be useful. 3 Cloning in Medicine Cloning for medical purposes has the potential to benefit large numbers of people. How might cloning be used in medicine? 4 Cloning animal models of disease Much of what researchers learn about human disease comes from studying animal models such as mice. Often, animal models are genetically engineered to carry disease-causing mutations in their genes. Creating these transgenic animals is a time-intensive process that requires trial- and-error and several generations of breeding. Cloning could help reduce the time needed to make a transgenic animal model, and the result would be a population of genetically identical animals for study. 5 Cloning to make stem cells Stem cells build, maintain, and repair the body throughout our lives. Because these are processes that stem cells do naturally, they can be manipulated to repair damaged or diseased organs and tissues. But stem cells transferred from one person to another (such as in a bone marrow transplant) are seen as foreign, and they usually trigger an immune response. 6 Some researchers are looking at cloning as a way to create stem cells that are genetically identical to an individual. These cells could then beused for medical purposes, possibly even for growing whole organs. And stem cells cloned from someone with a disease could be grown in culture and studied to help researchers understand the disease and develop treatments. 7 In 2013, scientists at Oregon Health and Science University were the first to use cloning techniques to successfully create human embryonicstem cells. The donor DNA came from an 8-month-old with a rare genetic disease.

“Why Clone?” Learn.Genetics. The Genetic Science Learning Center, University of Utah, 2007. Web. 24 Apr. 2012. .

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