I 

114TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 3498 

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

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015 

Mr. HARRIS 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 2105’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 Congress finds that— 

8 (1) some individuals have announced that they 

9 will continue attempts to clone human beings using 

10 the technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer 


smartinez on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with BILLS
2 

•HR 3498 IH

1 already used with limited success in sheep and other 

2 animals; 

3 (2) nearly all scientists agree that such at4 tempts pose a massive risk of producing children 

5 who are stillborn, unhealthy, or severely disabled, 

6 and considered opinion is virtually unanimous that 

7 such attempts are therefore grossly irresponsible and 

8 unethical; 

9 (3) efforts to create human beings by cloning 

10 mark a new and decisive step toward turning human 

11 reproduction into a manufacturing process in which 

12 children are made in laboratories to preordained 

13 specifications and, potentially, in multiple copies; 

14 (4) because it is an asexual form of reproduc15 tion, cloning confounds the meaning of ‘‘father’’ and 

16 ‘‘mother’’ and confuses the identity and kinship rela17 tions of any cloned child, and thus threatens to 

18 weaken existing notions regarding who bears which 

19 parental duties and responsibilities for children; 

20 (5) because cloning requires no personal in21 volvement by the person whose genetic material is 

22 used, cloning could easily be used to reproduce living 

23 or deceased persons without their consent; 

24 (6) creating cloned live-born human children 

25 (sometimes called ‘‘reproductive cloning’’) necVerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 Sep 15, 2015 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H3498.IH H3498

smartinez on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with BILLS
3 

•HR 3498 IH

1 essarily begins by creating cloned human embryos, a 

2 process which some also propose as a way to create 

3 embryos for research or as sources of cells and tis4 sues for possible treatment of other humans; 

5 (7) the prospect of creating new human life 

6 solely to be exploited and destroyed in this way has 

7 been condemned on moral grounds by many, includ8 ing supporters of a right to abortion, as displaying 

9 a profound disrespect for life, and recent scientific 

10 advances with adult stem cells indicate that there 

11 are fruitful and morally unproblematic alternatives 

12 to this approach; 

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

14 cloning must stop the cloning process at the begin15 ning because— 

16 (A) cloning would take place within the 

17 privacy of a doctor-patient relationship; 

18 (B) the transfer of embryos to begin a 

19 pregnancy is a simple procedure; and 

20 (C) any government effort to prevent the 

21 transfer of an existing embryo, or to prevent 

22 birth once the transfer has occurred, would 

23 raise substantial moral, legal, and practical 

24 issues, so that it will be nearly impossible to 

25 prevent attempts at ‘‘reproductive cloning’’ once 


smartinez on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with BILLS
4 

•HR 3498 IH

1 cloned human embryos are available in the lab2 oratory; 

3 (9) the scientifically and medically useful prac4 tices of cloning of DNA fragments, known as molec5 ular cloning, the duplication of somatic cells (or 

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

7 and whole-organism or embryo cloning of nonhuman 

8 animals are appropriate uses of medical technology; 

9 (10) in the preamble to the 1998 Additional 

10 Protocol on the Prohibition of Cloning Human 

11 Beings the Council of Europe agreed that ‘‘the 

12 instrumentalisation of human beings through the de13 liberate creation of genetically identical human 

14 beings is contrary to human dignity and thus con15 stitutes a misuse of biology and medicine’’; 

16 (11) collaborative efforts to perform human 

17 cloning are conducted in ways that affect interstate 

18 and even international commerce, and the legal sta19 tus of cloning will have a great impact on how bio20 technology companies direct their resources for re21 search and development; 

22 (12) at least 23 countries have banned all 

23 human cloning, including Canada, France, and Ger24 many; 


smartinez on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with BILLS
5 

•HR 3498 IH

1 (13) the United Nations has passed a declara2 tion calling for all human cloning to be banned by 

3 member nations; and 

4 (14) cloned human embryos have been created 

5 in a few cases, to be destroyed to extract embryonic 

6 stem cells; these few successes substantially increase 

7 the risk for exploitation of women for human eggs 

8 needed to create clones, and continued experimen9 tation makes it more likely that there will be at10 tempts to gestate cloned human embryos to birth. 

11 SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON HUMAN CLONING. 

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

13 amended by inserting after chapter 15 the following: 

14 ‘‘CHAPTER 16—HUMAN CLONING 

‘‘Sec. 

‘‘301. Definitions. 

‘‘302. Prohibition on human cloning. 

15 ‘‘§ 301. Definitions 

16 ‘‘In this chapter: 

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

18 cloning’ means human asexual reproduction, accom19 plished by introducing the nuclear material of a 

20 human somatic cell into a fertilized or unfertilized 

21 oocyte whose nucleus has been removed or inac22 tivated to produce a living organism (at any stage 

23 of development) with a human or predominantly 

24 human genetic constitution. 


smartinez on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with BILLS
6 

•HR 3498 IH

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

2 means a diploid cell (having a complete set of chro3 mosomes) obtained or derived from a living or de4 ceased human body at any stage of development. 

5 ‘‘§ 302. Prohibition on human cloning 

6 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for any per7 son or entity, public or private, in or affecting interstate 

8 commerce— 

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

10 cloning; 

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

12 human cloning; or 

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

14 cloning for any purpose. 

15 ‘‘(b) IMPORTATION.—It shall be unlawful for any per16 son or entity, public or private, to import the product of 

17 human cloning for any purpose. 

18 ‘‘(c) PENALTIES.— 

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

20 is convicted of violating any provision of this section 

21 shall be fined under this section or imprisoned not 

22 more than 10 years, or both. 

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

24 that is convicted of violating any provision of this 

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


smartinez on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with BILLS
7 

•HR 3498 IH

1 that involves the derivation of a pecuniary gain, a 

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

3 more than an amount equal to the amount of the 

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

5 than $1,000,000. 

6 ‘‘(d) SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.—Nothing in this sec7 tion shall restrict areas of scientific research not specifi8 cally prohibited by this section, including research in the 

9 use of nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques to 

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

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

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

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

14 inserting after the item relating to chapter 15 the fol15 lowing: 

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

Æ 


smartinez on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with BILLS