**Dear Colleagues attached from the following Representatives:**

-   Jo Ann Davis

-   Joseph R. Pitts

-   John Sullivan

-   Rick Renzi

-   Mike Pence

-   Rob Bishop

-   Christopher Smith

-   Cliff Stearns

-   Marilyn Musgrave

-   Jim Ryun

Women's Eggs: A Hot Commodity?

February 25, 2003

Dear Colleague:

I would like to bring to light one of the most dangerous consequences of
voting for human cloning, both reproductive [and]{.underline}
therapeutic: the threat it poses to women. Cloning in any form will most
surely lead to the exploitation of women.

In order to create human embryos, great quantities of women's eggs will
be needed. To obtain eggs, women will be injected with superovulatory
drugs and then will undergo an invasive procedure. The risks of this
procedure are just starting to be documented. *The Washington Post*
recently reported that the side effects from these injections are
abdominal pain and nausea; in 3 to 5 percent of cases hyperstimulation
of the ovaries occurs, causing sever abdominal pain; on rare occasions
surgery is required which may leave the women infertile. In addition to
these risks, scientific studies have indicated an increased incidence of
ovarian cancer for women who take these drugs.

Women of lower economic means are particular targets for exploitation.
Advanced Cell Technology paid \$3,500-\$4,000 to each woman who donated
her eggs for their failed human cloning experiments. Unlike women who
endure these procedures with the hope of having a child, women who
partake in selling their eggs will be motivated solely by money. Because
of the many risks associated with this procedure, it will mostly be
women of little means who will volunteer to sell their eggs.

But it will not just be a few women who will be needed. In order to
generate enough cloned embryos to carry out research on the scale that
is envisioned, thousands of eggs will need to be solicited from numerous
women. Just to treat the 16 million Parkinson's patients, it is
estimated that a **minimum of 800 million human eggs** would be needed
from a **minimum of 80 million women of childbearing age.**

I implore my colleagues to vote for the health and well being of women.
Please vote **for** the **Weldon-Stupak** bill and **against** the
**Greenwood** substitute.

With kind regards, I remain

Sincerely,

s/Jo Ann Davis

Member of Congress

February 25, 2003

# Goodbye Dolly

![](media/image1.png){width="1.4354166666666666in" height="2.1125in"}

1996-2003

Dear Colleague,

By now, everyone has heard of the euthanized death of "Dolly," the
infamous cloned sheep. She died on Valentine's Day 2003 at the age of 6,
half the normal life-expectancy for a sheep.

Alan Coleman, a Singapore-based scientist who helped clone Dolly said,
"\"**I think it highlights more than ever the foolishness of those who
want to legalize (human)...cloning...In the case of humans, it would be
scandalous to go ahead given our knowledge about the long-term affects
of cloning."**
[\<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=534&ncid=534&e=8&u=/ap/20030215/ap_on_sc/singapore_cloned_sheep\>]{.underline}

> [If cloning is not safe for animals, how can it be good for
> humans?]{.underline}

I urge you to [vote for]{.underline} the [Weldon/Stupak]{.underline} ban
(H.R. 534) and [vote against]{.underline} the [Greenwood]{.underline}
substitute.

Cordially,

/s/

Joseph R. Pitts

######### Member of Congress

February 26, 2003

**Will cloning yield cures for millions of patients?**

**Not likely.**

**Vote for Weldon/Stupak. Vote against the Greenwood Substitute.**

Dear Colleague:

There is a growing skepticism in the scientific community about the
clinical applications of cloning:

James Thomson, who discovered embryo stem cells, quoted from his paper:
\"\[T\]he poor availability of human oocytes, the low efficiency of the
nuclear transfer procedure, and the long population-doubling time of
human ES cells make it difficult to envision this \[cloning\] becoming a
routine clinical procedure...\" Odorico JS, Kaufman DS, Thomson JA,
\"Multilineage differentiation from human embryonic stem cell lines,\"
Stem Cells 19, 193-204; 2001.

\"...Ministers in Britain have too easily swallowed the line that
cloning human embryos is essential to medical progress. It is not."
Editorial, \"Brave New Medicine\", New Scientist, Dec 1, 2001

\"... many experts do not now expect therapeutic cloning to have a large
impact. Aside from problems with the supply of human egg cells, and
ethical objections to any therapy that requires the destruction of human
embryos, many researchers have come to doubt whether therapeutic cloning
will ever be efficient enough to be commercially viable." Peter Aldhous,
\"Can they rebuild us?\", Nature 410, 622-625; April 5, 2001."

**Vote for Weldon/Stupak. Vote against the Greenwood Substitute.**

Sincerely,

/s

John Sullivan

### Member of Congress

 

#### February 26, 2003

 

 

####### THE TRUTH ABOUT HUMAN CLONING

 

 

Dear Colleague,

 

H.R. 534 the Weldon-Stupak bill would ban the creation of human embryos
by cloning.  Human cloning is the scientific creation of mutated human
life; making it easier to mettle with human and animal genes.  Cloning,
in theory, allows you to turn any cell into a life form.  By diabolic
design, the cloning of a human embryo is created to essentially be
defective.  Why should we create life only to set the stage for
destroying life?  It is immoral to allow embryo farms to advance an
agenda of experimental research.

 

Some proponents of human cloning for research are trying to confuse
people by saying that embryo stem cell research and human cloning
research are the same thing.  They are not.

 

No matter what your position is on federal funding for embryo stem cell
research, it is important that you oppose human cloning for research. 
Research cloning would cross a new moral line by specifically creating
intentionally damaged life to use in experiments.  Creating new human
life, en mass, for the purpose of scientific experimentation is
abhorrent to all principles of a civilized society.

 

**Join me in voting [NO]{.underline} on the Greenwood substitute
amendment and voting [YES]{.underline} on the Weldon-Stupak Human
Cloning Ban.**

 

Sincerely,

 

>  /s
>
> Rick Renzi

MEMBER OF CONGRESS

February 24, 2003

> **Stop Cloning Around!**
>
> ***Cutting Through the Rhetoric: Getting to the Facts***

Dear Colleague:

With the debate over a human cloning ban coming before the House on
February 27, it is important that Members of Congress be able to
separate fact and fiction. Unfortunately, some of the information
provided by outside groups who advocate human cloning research misses
the mark when it comes to being factually correct.

In an effort to help you see the true story behind this debate, I have
attached a side-by-side summary of the rhetoric used by advocates of
cloning (The Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research) and the
real facts. I hope that you find this information helpful as the House
prepares to debate this important issue.

**[Don't be fooled or confused by the misleading rhetoric of those who
treat human life as a commodity.]{.underline}**

Sincerely,

/s

Mike Pence

Member of Congress

**FICTION**

Source: Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research

> • Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is not the science fiction you
> see in movies, but rather a reasonable and appropriate way to
> alleviate the horrors faced by patients suffering from deadly and
> painful diseases
>
> • Cloning is widely used, vital medical tool that has allowed
> scientists and researchers to develop powerful new drugs; produce
> insulin and useful bacteria in the lab; track the origins of
> biological weapons; catch criminals and free innocent people; and
> produce new plants and livestock to help feed an undernourished world
> population.
>
> • The nation's leading scientists, including two prestigious
> committees of the National Academy of Sciences, agree that cloning to
> reproduce humans should be illegal, but that SCNT (or therapeutic
> cloning) should be permitted.
>
> • SCNT is a research technique to develop cells that can be used to
> treat or cure chronic and degenerative diseases and disorders. The
> process has nothing to do with sexual reproduction. Its sole purpose
> is research to meet unmet medical needs.
>
> • By moving stem cell research forward, SCNT could bring new hope to
> the nearly 100 million Americans who suffer from cancer, Alzheimer's,
> diabetes, hepatitis, Parkinson's disease and other devastating
> conditions for which treatments must still be found.
>
> **FACTS**
>
> • Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) begins by paying women to
> undergo a medical procedure to harvest their eggs for experimental
> research. These eggs are then used to create cloned human embryos,
> letting them grow for a couple of weeks, and then dissecting them for
> their cells. SCNT as is being proposed by the opponents of the
> Weldon-Stupak bill has not been used to treat a single human. In fact,
> it's not even been proven in an animal model.
>
> • Don't be deceived. The Weldon-Stupak bill does not ban the type of
> cloning described in this talking point. Anyone who reads the
> Weldon-Stupak bill will see clearly that the type of cloning discussed
> in this CAMR talking point does not involved the harvesting of eggs
> from women and the creation of a human embryo. Section 302(d) of the
> Weldon-Stupak bill explicitly allows for this type of cloning. Either
> they haven't read the Weldon-Stupak bill, or they are making a
> deliberate attempt to mislead Members of Congress.
>
> • These panels included no bioethicists or others concerned about the
> moral or ethical issues involved. These panels deferred ethical issues
> to others. Neither of these committees could produce a single study
> showing how "therapeutic" cloning had been successfully done in
> animals.
>
> • SCNT is a research technique that begins by harvesting eggs from
> women and creating "cloned human embryos." (President Clinton's
> Committee on Bioethics). These cloned embryos are then grown for
> several days, dissected, and experimented with in laboratories.
> Proponents of experimental therapeutic cloning research make the point
> of telling you that SCNT has nothing to do with sexual reproduction in
> an effort to mislead you into thinking that what they have created is
> not a viable human embryo. These embryos have a full complement of 46
> chromosomes and are fully capable of growing to term. Also, if it's
> not a viable embryo there is no need for the provision in the bill
> they support which would attempt to ban implanting these "products of
> SCNT" in a woman's uterus. (SCNT is the exact same process used to
> create Dolly the sheep.)
>
> • This is the exact same rhetoric that was used ten years ago to
> promote fetal tissue research using aborted fetuses. Those hopes have
> all been dashed as no therapy has come from fetal tissue research.
> Furthermore, some pro-cloning researchers are very concerned that
> advocates of therapeutic cloning have oversold cloning and are once
> again raising false hopes in those suffering from these diseases.

![](media/image2.png){width="1.75in" height="1.5in"}

Dear Colleague:

I want to introduce you to Joni Earekson Tada, a passionate advocate for
human dignity for all human beings. Joni has been a paraplegic for 35
years and has become an inspiration to those with disabilities in the
United States and in other countries. She served on the National Council
on Disability and has a national program to assist and encourage persons
with disabilities.

In the following article, Joni makes an impassioned plea to pass a
complete ban on human cloning and reject the idea that creating human
embryo farms will be good for those with disabilities. Please take a
moment to read Joni's piece on "Research Cloning from a Disability
Perspective," and vote against the Greenwood substitute to the
Weldon-Stupak cloning legislation.

Sincerely,

/s

Rob Bishop

Member of Congress

# **A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM JONI**

Research Cloning from a Disability Perspective

Statement by Joni Eareckson Tada/Christian Council on Persons with
Disabilities

My heart goes out to newly injured people who have suffered spinal cord
damage. No one understands better their desire for a cure, than I.
Thirty five years ago when I broke my neck and became a quadriplegic, I
was desperate for anything - \"please, doctors, researchers, do
anything\" - that would repair my spinal cord and give me back use of my
legs and hands. Acute disability does that: it screams for reprieve,
demanding that a cure be gained at any cost.

Thirty five years later, my perspective has changed. Time makes one look
at the broader implications - not how embryonic stem cell research would
impact the individual, but society as a whole. Yes, my husband and I
still encourage spinal cord injury research and cure, but not to the
degree that the benefits of a possible cure outweigh the serious and
permanent consequences.

For me, and tens of thousands of people with disabilities, the security
of human dignity and respect for human life is paramount to securing a
cure. The rights of people with disabilities - especially those
disadvantaged and weak - are safeguarded in a society that honors life
and treats humanity with respect. However, the weak and infirmed are
exposed in a society that thinks nothing of creating a class of human
lives for the explicit purpose of exploitation. This is the Pandora\'s
box research cloning would open. Ironically, the disabled would be the
first to be threatened in a world where eugenics and the bio-tech
industry set the moral agenda. It\'s an impersonal world that uses the
guise of \"cure\" while devaluing the very human life it purports to
help.

Historically, people with disabilities have never fared well in
utilitarian societies where right versus wrong doesn\'t count, but
whether or not \"it will work.\" One prominent pro-cloning advocate, in
his testimony before the Senate, said, \"The duty of government is to do
the greatest good for the greatest number\" - yet it was this ideology
which paved the way for the extermination of hundreds of thousands of
people with disabilities in World War II. Rather, the duty of government
is to safeguard the rights of the weak and marginalized; in so doing,
the rights of all are upheld. This strikes at the heart of the cloning
debate. If experimental cloning were legalized by the passage of the
Feinstein or Harkin bills, for the first time in history it would become
a crime not to kill an entire class of human beings. I can't think of
anything that would more damage the character of our helping society.

As a person with a disability, that\'s not the kind of world I want.
Research should not benefit me at the expense of other human life. I do
not want a society that establishes in law a class of embryos that it is
a crime not to destroy. It makes no sense for valuable resources
dedicated to safe and more promising adult stem cell research to be
diverted for cloning experimentation - there is scientific data showing
that stem cells can be obtained from the blood of the umbilical cord,
from neuro-tissue, bone marrow and skin cells.

I join countless Americans with disabilities in deploring the
\"harvesting\" of human life; I find it shameful that some of my
associates with disabilities are using their physical impairment as a
plea to promote research cloning, and I am offended that words like
\"helpless victim\" and \"being trapped in a useless body\" are used to
sway the sympathies of legislators. Rather, let us influence our society
with reasoned judgment, strength of character, and a commitment to
improve our culture, not diminish it.

I encourage disabled people, their families and friends to say no to
cloning and persuade the Senate to pass the Brownback-Landrieu bill.

February 26, 2003

***"I contend it is an embryo."***

***"I don't think anyone is saying that it is just an egg."***

> ---Dr. Gearhart, speaking at Congressman Greenwood's press conference
> today and clarifying that the product of Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
> (SCNT) is scientifically an embryo.

Dear Colleague:

At a press conference today organized by supporters of the Greenwood
substitute to the Weldon/Stupak human cloning ban, Dr. Gearhart
clarified for reporters that the product of SCNT is clearly an embryo.
This is consistent with Dr. Gearhart's previous statements on the matter
and is an important clarification since one Member of Congress at the
same press conference contended that the distinction in this debate is
that it is "not an embryo, it is an egg."

Dr. John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University, one of the discoverers of
human embryonic stem cells, also testified before President's Council on
Bioethics on April 25, 2002 saying:

\"I know that you are grappling with this \[question of whether a cloned
embryo created in the lab is the same thing as an embryo produced by egg
and sperm, and whether we should call it an embryo\], but anything that
you construct at this point in time that has the properties of those
structures to me is an embryo, and we should not be changing vocabulary
at this point in time.\"

In order for us to have an honest debate on the issue of human cloning,
it is important that we acknowledge what is scientifically obvious -
that an egg is a single cell, with only 23 chromosomes, but that once
genetic material is introduced and the embryo is developing we have a
member of the species Homo sapiens, possessing 46 chromosomes, and as
likely to be a male as a female. Of course cloning creates an embryo,
because if it did not why would proponents of the Greenwood substitute
want to ban the implantation of the clone?

If proponents of human cloning for research want to create cloned human
embryo farms in order to do batteries of tests on the embryos and
destroy them, then they should just be honest about it like Dr. Gearhart
was today.

Sincerely,

/s

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

Member of Congress

**Vote for Weldon/Stupak and Against the Greenwood Substitute
Amendment**

***URGE OTHER NATIONS TO PROHIBIT ALL HUMAN CLONING -***

***VOTE FOR STEARNS' AMENDMENT TO HR 534***

#### February 27, 2003

Dear Colleague:

Today I am introducing an amendment to HR 534, the Weldon-Stupak Cloning
Bill, that expresses the sense of the Congress that foreign nations
should establish total prohibitions on human cloning, such as HR 534
provides.

This request for foreign countries' thoughtful consideration of human
cloning is more relevant today than ever: On December 27, 2002, a
representative of the Bahamas-based firm Clonaid announced the overseas
birth of the first cloned human being. This was followed by claims of a
cloned baby's birth by a Dutch couple in January 2003. Finally, we
commonly hear both warnings and boastings, depending on your position,
from American and foreign scientists alike that a United States ban will
only drive research overseas.

This amendment has precedent. It is very common in fields of science for
nations to establish some common standards. To begin, the discovery that
Nazi physicians and scientists had conducted horrific biomedical
experiments during the Second World War gave rise to consensus on the
Nuremberg Code, a set of standards for judging the perpetrators. And
now, the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical
Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH)
unifies industry and regulatory authorities of Europe, Japan and the
United States in regards to clinical research and production. Even
outside of human science; for example, in my own field of electronics,
Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) works to help companies achieve some
global standardization for products, whether electrical devices,
programmable systems or processes.

I hope you will join me in supporting this important amendment.
Americans have expressed discomfort with the unknown and unintended
consequences wrought by the cloning of a human being. Let us pass the
Weldon-Stupak ban, then ask our foreign friends to join us in their own
federal restrictions. If we do not move as a world to ban human cloning,
I fear that rogue research will just migrate to willing nations. If you
have any questions, please contact Lauren at 5-5744.

> /S/
>
> Cliff Stearns,

######## U.S. Representative 

> **AVERTING A *[BRAVE NEW WORLD]{.underline}***
>
> **\"*Once embryonic clones are produced in the laboratories the
> eugenic revolution will have begun*.\"**
>
> Dr. Leon Kass, M.D., Ph.D.
>
> Bioethicist, Univ. of Chicago
>
> Chair of President's Council on Bioethics
>
> Dear Colleague:
>
> *\"This is not an issue of pro-life versus pro-choice. It is not about
> death and destruction, or about a woman\'s right to choose. It is only
> and emphatically about baby design and manufacture: the opening
> skirmish of a long battle against eugenics and against a post-human
> future*,\" explains the University of Chicago's Dr. Leon Kass, M.D.,
> Ph.D., one of the leading bioethicists in America today. (May 21,
> 2001, [The New Republic]{.underline})
>
> Dr. Kass explains the significance of human cloning and why all
> cloning should be banned:
>
> ***We are compelled to decide nothing less than whether human
> procreation is going to remain human, whether children are going to be
> made to order rather than begotten, and whether we wish to say yes in
> principle to the road that leads to the dehumanized hell of Brave New
> World.\"***
>
> Producing human clones to preordained specifications risking children
> who are stillborn or severely disabled is totally unacceptable. Not
> one study in animal models shows that "therapeutic cloning" works.
> Instead, two animal cloning studies suggest that the cloned embryos
> would need to be developed to the fetal or adult stage to get tissues
> organs for effective treatments. We should not go down the road to
> designing human clones for their parts.
>
> **VOTE [NO]{.underline} ON THE GREEENWOOD SUBSTITUTE**
>
> **VOTE [YES]{.underline} ON WELDON-STUPAK BILL**
>
> Sincerely,
>
> /s/
>
> Marilyn Musgrave

Member of Congress

February 24, 2003

**If they don\'t think cloning creates an embryo, why do they want to
ban implantation?**

Dear Colleague,

Some proponents of human cloning for research purposes have spent a
considerable amount of effort highlighting that the mechanical process
of cloning (SCNT - somatic cell nuclear transfer) uses an unfertilized
egg. By focusing on the fact that cloning does not involve
fertilization, they are trying to make it sound like a human embryo is
not created in the process. That is factually and scientifically
incorrect.

It is biological nonsense to apply the term "egg" to a five-day-old or
two-week-old developing cloned embryo, which has 46 chromosomes and is
male or female. And it is doubly silly to try to convince people that
allowing cloning only on \"unfertilized eggs\" makes it morally
acceptable -- all cloning by definition is reproduction without sexual
fertilization. All clones, animal or human, will be ''unfertilized'' no
longer how long they live. Dolly the Sheep was created by the SCNT
cloning process, which does not involve fertilization, and she was
clearly a sheep until she died two weeks ago from the genetic defects
she carried from being a clone.

Don\'t take my word for it. The President\'s Bioethics Council
unanimously agreed that the product of SCNT (cloning) is clearly an
embryo:

> ***Cloned human embryo:** (a) The immediate and developing product of
> the initial act of cloning, accomplished by SCNT. (b) A human embryo
> resulting from the somatic cell nuclear transfer process (as
> contrasted with a human embryo arising from the union of egg and
> sperm).*
>
> -- Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry, Ch. 3, On
> Terminology
> http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/cloningreport/terminology.html

The Council went a step further and said attempts to define these
embryos only by their potential use to others is not consistent with
truth or ethical conduct. Proponents of cloning for research cut corners
by claiming that SCNT creates stem cells, when in reality SCNT creates
an embryo that would then have to be destroyed to obtain stem cells.

But those who try to sweep away moral concerns by making it sound like
no embryo is created in the cloning process undercut their own argument
that they are against the implantation of the product of SCNT. Why would
they want to create criminal penalties for implanting an unfertilized
egg into a womb?

Sincerely,

> /s
>
> Cliff Stearns

##  MEMBER OF CONGRESS

**Vote Yes on Weldon/Stupak Human Cloning Ban, and Reject Gutting
Amendments**

***\"Anything short of an outright ban would present other difficulties
to law enforcement.\"***

*** ***

-         Daniel J. Bryant, Assistant Attorney General, speaking before
the House Government Reform

Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, May
15, 2002

 

 

Dear Colleague:

 

            The debate on human cloning has many facets.  In a matter of
hours, during consideration of the Weldon/Stupak ban on all human
cloning, we will be called to vote upon a substitute amendment, the
Greenwood Amendment.  This substitute appears to outlaw cloning for
reproductive purposes, but allows for \"therapeutic\" cloning intended
for research.

 

            While there are sufficient scientific and moral reasons that
\"therapeutic\" cloning should be outlawed, it is the lack of
enforceability that renders the Greenwood Amendment worthless.  The
Greenwood language allows for the creation of a cloned embryo, but then
***[mandates the destruction of that embryo]{.underline}***.  The crime
would not be the creation of the cloned embryo, but rather the failure
to destroy it.  Should one of these embryos be implanted in the womb,
how would the Greenwood ban be enforced?

 

            On the other hand, the comprehensive Weldon/Stupak ban
clearly outlaws all human cloning and is thereby free of such
enforcement problems.  Mr. Bryant testified to this with the following
words:

 

> *\"The task of enforcing a general ban on human cloning for any
> purpose does not seem to pose insuperable challenges to law
> enforcement.  Such a ban would clearly define the exact activity to be
> banned, which is the use of the procedure known as somatic cell
> nuclear transfer to produce human embryos.\"*

 

            **Do not be fooled.  Therapeutic cloning is reproductive
cloning.  Both result in a human embryo.  Vote for Weldon/Stupak and
against the Greenwood Amendment!**

 

 

                                                           
                                    Sincerely,

                                                           
                                    /s

                                                           
                                    Jim Ryun

                                                           
                                    Member of Congress