I 

110TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 2564 

To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit human cloning. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 5, 2007 

Mr. WELDON of Florida (for himself, Mr. STUPAK, Mr. SMITH of New Jersey, 

Mr. PITTS, Mr. PENCE, Mr. BOOZMAN, Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. 

FORTENBERRY, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. CHABOT, 

Mr. KING of Iowa, Mr. AKIN, Mr. RENZI, Mr. LIPINSKI, Mr. RAHALL, 

Mr. MCINTYRE, Mr. MANZULLO, Mr. SESSIONS, Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of 

Virginia, Mr. TIAHRT, Mr. GINGREY, Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky, Ms. FOXX, 

Mr. BOUSTANY, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. JORDAN of Ohio, Mr. TERRY, Mr. 

FERGUSON, and Mr. KELLER of Florida) introduced the following bill; 

which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 

A BILL 

To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit human 

cloning. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Human Cloning Prohi5 bition Act of 2007’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 Congress finds that— 


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1 (1) some individuals have announced that they 

2 will attempt to clone human beings using the tech3 nique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer already 

4 used with limited success in sheep and other ani5 mals; 

6 (2) nearly all scientists agree that such at7 tempts pose a massive risk of producing children 

8 who are stillborn, unhealthy, or severely disabled, 

9 and considered opinion is virtually unanimous that 

10 such attempts are therefore grossly irresponsible and 

11 unethical; 

12 (3) efforts to create human beings by cloning 

13 mark a new and decisive step toward turning human 

14 reproduction into a manufacturing process in which 

15 children are made in laboratories to preordained 

16 specifications and, potentially, in multiple copies; 

17 (4) because it is an asexual form of reproduc18 tion, cloning confounds the meaning of ‘‘father’’ and 

19 ‘‘mother’’ and confuses the identity and kinship rela20 tions of any cloned child, and thus threatens to 

21 weaken existing notions regarding who bears which 

22 parental duties and responsibilities for children; 

23 (5) because cloning requires no personal in24 volvement by the person whose genetic material is 


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1 used, cloning could easily be used to reproduce living 

2 or deceased persons without their consent; 

3 (6) creating cloned live-born human children 

4 (sometimes called ‘‘reproductive cloning’’) nec5 essarily begins by creating cloned human embryos, a 

6 process which some also propose as a way to create 

7 embryos for research or as sources of cells and tis8 sues for possible treatment of other humans; 

9 (7) the prospect of creating new human life 

10 solely to be exploited and destroyed in this way has 

11 been condemned on moral grounds by many, includ12 ing supporters of a right to abortion, as displaying 

13 a profound disrespect for life, and recent scientific 

14 advances with adult stem cells indicate that there 

15 are fruitful and morally unproblematic alternatives 

16 to this approach; 

17 (8) in order to be effective, a ban on human 

18 cloning must stop the cloning process at the begin19 ning because— 

20 (A) cloning would take place within the 

21 privacy of a doctor-patient relationship; 

22 (B) the transfer of embryos to begin a 

23 pregnancy is a simple procedure; and 

24 (C) any government effort to prevent the 

25 transfer of an existing embryo, or to prevent 


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1 birth once the transfer has occurred, would 

2 raise substantial moral, legal, and practical 

3 issues, so that it will be nearly impossible to 

4 prevent attempts at ‘‘reproductive cloning’’ once 

5 cloned human embryos are available in the lab6 oratory; 

7 (9) the scientifically and medically useful prac8 tices of cloning of DNA fragments, known as molec9 ular cloning, the duplication of somatic cells (or 

10 stem cells) in tissue culture, known as cell cloning, 

11 and whole-organism or embryo cloning of nonhuman 

12 animals are appropriate uses of medical technology; 

13 (10) in the preamble to the 1998 Additional 

14 Protocol on the Prohibition of Cloning Human 

15 Beings the Council of Europe agreed that ‘‘the 

16 instrumentalisation of human beings through the de17 liberate creation of genetically identical human 

18 beings is contrary to human dignity and thus con19 stitutes a misuse of biology and medicine’’; 

20 (11) collaborative efforts to perform human 

21 cloning are conducted in ways that affect interstate 

22 and even international commerce, and the legal sta23 tus of cloning will have a great impact on how bio24 technology companies direct their resources for re25 search and development; 


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1 (12) at least 23 countries have banned all 

2 human cloning, including Canada, France, and Ger3 many; 

4 (13) the United Nations has passed a declara5 tion calling for all human cloning to be banned by 

6 member nations; and 

7 (14) attempts to create cloned human embryos 

8 for development of embryonic stem cell lines have 

9 been unsuccessful, most recently involving the exploi10 tation of over a hundred women in South Korea to 

11 provide over 2,000 human eggs without the produc12 tion of a single stem cell line. 

13 SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON HUMAN CLONING. 

14 (a) IN GENERAL.—Title 18, United States Code, is 

15 amended by inserting after chapter 15, the following: 

16 ‘‘CHAPTER 16—HUMAN CLONING 

‘‘Sec. 

‘‘301. Definitions. 

‘‘302. Prohibition on human cloning. 

17 ‘‘§ 301. Definitions 

18 ‘‘In this chapter: 

19 ‘‘(1) HUMAN CLONING.—The term ‘human 

20 cloning’ means human asexual reproduction, accom21 plished by introducing the nuclear material of a 

22 human somatic cell into a fertilized or unfertilized 

23 oocyte whose nucleus has been removed or inac24 tivated to produce a living organism (at any stage 


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1 of development) with a human or predominantly 

2 human genetic constitution. 

3 ‘‘(2) SOMATIC CELL.—The term ‘somatic cell’ 

4 means a diploid cell (having a complete set of chro5 mosomes) obtained or derived from a living or de6 ceased human body at any stage of development. 

7 ‘‘§ 302. Prohibition on human cloning 

8 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for any per9 son or entity, public or private, in or affecting interstate 

10 commerce— 

11 ‘‘(1) to perform or attempt to perform human 

12 cloning; 

13 ‘‘(2) to participate in an attempt to perform 

14 human cloning; or 

15 ‘‘(3) to ship or receive the product of human 

16 cloning for any purpose. 

17 ‘‘(b) IMPORTATION.—It shall be unlawful for any per18 son or entity, public or private, to import the product of 

19 human cloning for any purpose. 

20 ‘‘(c) PENALTIES.— 

21 ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Any person or entity that 

22 is convicted of violating any provision of this section 

23 shall be fined under this section or imprisoned not 

24 more than 10 years, or both. 


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1 ‘‘(2) CIVIL PENALTY.—Any person or entity 

2 that is convicted of violating any provision of this 

3 section shall be subject to, in the case of a violation 

4 that involves the derivation of a pecuniary gain, a 

5 civil penalty of not less than $1,000,000 and not 

6 more than an amount equal to the amount of the 

7 gross gain multiplied by 2, if that amount is greater 

8 than $1,000,000. 

9 ‘‘(d) SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.—Nothing in this sec10 tion shall restrict areas of scientific research not specifi11 cally prohibited by this section, including research in the 

12 use of nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques to 

13 produce molecules, DNA, cells other than human embryos, 

14 tissues, organs, plants, or animals other than humans.’’. 

15 (b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of chapters 

16 for part I of title 18, United States Code, is amended by 

17 inserting after the item relating to chapter 15 the fol18 lowing: 

‘‘16. Human Cloning .......................................................................... 301’’. 

Æ 


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