I

107TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION H. R. 1644

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

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

APRIL 26, 2001

Mr. WELDON of Florida (for himself and Mr. STUPAK) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and

in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to

be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee

concerned

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 2001’’.

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

7 Congress finds that—

8 (1) some individuals have announced that they

9 will attempt to clone human beings using the tech-
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1 nique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer already

2 used with limited success in sheep and other ani3 mals;

4 (2) nearly all scientists agree that such at5 tempts pose a massive risk of producing children

6 who are stillborn, unhealthy, or severely disabled,

7 and considered opinion is virtually unanimous that

8 such attempts are therefore grossly irresponsible and

9 unethical;

10 (3) efforts to create human beings by cloning

11 mark a new and decisive step toward turning human

12 reproduction into a manufacturing process in which

13 children are made in laboratories to preordained

14 specifications and, potentially, in multiple copies;

15 (4) because it is an asexual form of reproduc16 tion, cloning confounds the meaning of ‘‘father’’ and

17 ‘‘mother’’ and confuses the identity and kinship rela18 tions of any cloned child, and thus threatens to

19 weaken existing notions regarding who bears which

20 parental duties and responsibilities for children;

21 (5) because cloning requires no personal in22 volvement by the person whose genetic material is

23 used, cloning could easily be used to reproduce living

24 or deceased persons without their consent;
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1 (6) creating cloned live-born human children

2 (sometimes called ‘‘reproductive cloning’’) nec3 essarily begins by creating cloned human embryos, a

4 process which some also propose as a way to create

5 embryos for research or as sources of cells and tis6 sues for possible treatment of other humans;

7 (7) the prospect of creating new human life

8 solely to be exploited and destroyed in this way has

9 been condemned on moral grounds by many, includ10 ing supporters of a right to abortion, as displaying

11 a profound disrespect for life, and recent scientific

12 advances with adult stem cells indicate that there

13 are fruitful and morally unproblematic alternatives

14 to this approach;

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

16 cloning must stop the cloning process at the begin17 ning because—

18 (A) cloning would take place within the

19 privacy of a doctor-patient relationship;

20 (B) the transfer of embryos to begin a

21 pregnancy is a simple procedure; and

22 (C) any government effort to prevent the

23 transfer of an existing embryo, or to prevent

24 birth once the transfer has occurred, would

25 raise substantial moral, legal, and practical
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1 issues, so that it will be nearly impossible to

2 prevent attempts at ‘‘reproductive cloning’’ once

3 cloned human embryos are available in the lab4 oratory;

5 (9) the scientifically and medically useful prac6 tices of cloning of DNA fragments, known as molec7 ular cloning, the duplication of somatic cells (or

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

9 and whole-organism or embryo cloning of nonhuman

10 animals are appropriate uses of medical technology;

11 (10) in the preamble to the 1998 Additional

12 Protocol on the Prohibition of Cloning Human

13 Beings the Council of Europe agreed that ‘‘the

14 instrumentalisation of human beings through the de15 liberate creation of genetically identical human

16 beings is contrary to human dignity and thus con17 stitutes a misuse of biology and medicine’’; and

18 (11) collaborative efforts to perform human

19 cloning are conducted in ways that affect interstate

20 and even international commerce, and the legal sta21 tus of cloning will have a great impact on how bio22 technology companies direct their resources for re23 search and development.
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1 SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON HUMAN CLONING.

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

3 amended by inserting after chapter 15, the following:

4 ‘‘CHAPTER 16—HUMAN CLONING

‘‘Sec.

‘‘301. Definitions.

‘‘302. Prohibition on human cloning.

5 ‘‘§ 301. Definitions

6 ‘‘In this chapter:

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

8 cloning’ means human asexual reproduction, accom9 plished by introducing the nuclear material of a

10 human somatic cell into a fertilized or unfertilized

11 oocyte whose nucleus has been removed or inac12 tivated to produce a living organism (at any stage

13 of development) with a human or predominantly

14 human genetic constitution.

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

16 means a diploid cell (having a complete set of chro17 mosomes) obtained or derived from a living or de18 ceased human body at any stage of development.

19 ‘‘§ 302. Prohibition on human cloning

20 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for any per21 son or entity, public or private, in or affecting interstate

22 commerce—
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1 ‘‘(1) to perform or attempt to perform human

2 cloning;

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

4 human cloning; or

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

6 cloning for any purpose.

7 ‘‘(b) IMPORTATION.—It shall be unlawful for any per8 son or entity, public or private, to import the product of

9 human cloning for any purpose.

10 ‘‘(c) PENALTIES.—

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

12 is convicted of violating any provision of this section

13 shall be fined under this section or imprisoned not

14 more than 10 years, or both.

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

16 that is convicted of violating any provision of this

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

18 that involves the derivation of a pecuniary gain, a

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

20 more than an amount equal to the amount of the

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

22 than $1,000,000.

23 ‘‘(d) SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.—Nothing in this sec24 tion shall restrict areas of scientific research not specifi25 cally prohibited by this section, including research in the
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1 use of nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques to

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

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

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

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

6 inserting after the item relating to chapter 15 the fol7 lowing:

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

8 SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

9 It is the sense of Congress that—

10 (1) the Federal Government should advocate for

11 and join an international effort to prohibit human

12 cloning, as defined in section 301 of title 18, United

13 States Code, as added by this Act; and

14 (2) the President should commission a study, to

15 be conducted by the National Bioethics Advisory

16 Commission or a successor group, of the arguments

17 for and against the use of cloning to produce human

18 embryos solely for research, which study should—

19 (A) include a discussion of the need (if

20 any) for human cloning to produce medical ad21 vances, the ethical and legal aspects of human

22 cloning, and the possible impact of any decision

23 to permit human cloning for research upon ef24 forts to prevent human cloning for reproductive

25 purposes;
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1 (B) include a review of new developments

2 in cloning technology which may require that

3 technical changes be made to section 3 of this

4 Act, to maintain the effectiveness of this Act in

5 prohibiting the asexual production of a new

6 human organism that is genetically virtually

7 identical to an existing or previously existing

8 human being; and

9 (C) be submitted to Congress and the

10 President for review not later than 5 years after

11 the date of enactment of this legislation.

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