Pro-life official urges senators to back cloning ban

Washington D.C., Mar 30, 2007 / 07:36 am

The U.S. bishops’ Pro-Life Secretariat is urging senators to support a bill that will prohibit human cloning. The Human Cloning Prohibition Act was reintroduced by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) yesterday.

Shortly before the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a similar bill in 2003, the bishops' Committee for Pro-Life Activities urged Congress to “ban this practice outright.”

“Cloning dehumanizes human procreation, treating new human life as a mere laboratory product made to specifications,” the bishops’ committee wrote. “The allegedly lofty goals proposed for cloning cannot outweigh the grim reality of the activity itself.”

The bill has precedent domestically and overseas. “Five states and over 20 countries have similar complete bans on cloning. The United Nations has urged its member nations to enact such bans to preserve human dignity and protect women's health,” noted Deirdre McQuade, director of Planning and Information for the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.

McQuade added that the cloning agenda “poses a tremendous risk to women, as it would require exploiting countless women as egg factories. Women have died from the hormonal manipulation required for egg extraction. Others have become seriously ill or lost their natural fertility at a young age.”