Call Renewed in U.S. for Ban on Human Cloning

In a clash of politics and science, the first successful cloning of a human embryo -- and the extraction of stem cells from it -- has ignited new calls for a ban on all forms of human cloning in the United States.

The cloning announcement by South Korean scientists Thursday prompted members of Congress to ask for immediate legislation.

“Cloning human beings is wrong. It is unethical to tinker with human life,” said Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-Pa.). A ban must be passed, he said, “before this unethical science comes to our shores.”

The Bush administration favors such action and referred reporters to a statement by the president calling for “a comprehensive and effective ban.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a surgeon, called the South Korean breakthrough “an alarming development.”

“To clone a human being is to move from procreation to manufacture of human life,” the Tennessee Republican said in remarks in the Senate. “If human beings are special, if human beings are truly sacred, then we must devote ourselves to a better world. But we must not do evil to bring about good.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who voted against a bill passed last year by the House that called for a ban on human cloning, said there needs to be legislation that would prevent cloning of babies but permit “lifesaving stem cell research to proceed under strict ethical guidelines.”

Ethicist Laurie Zoloth of Northwestern University said the South Korean report showed it was time for lawmakers around the world to agree on what to do about cloning. “No one religion, no one moral authority, can claim to be the final arbiter of this work,” she told a news conference in Seattle.