nique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer already
used with limited success in sheep and other ani-
mals;
(2) nearly all scientists agree that such at-
tempts pose a massive risk of producing children
who are stillborn, unhealthy, or severely disabled,
and considered opinion is virtually unanimous that
such attempts are therefore grossly irresponsible and
unethical;
(3) efforts to create human beings by cloning
mark a new and decisive step toward turning human
reproduction into a manufacturing process in which
children are made in laboratories to preordained
specifications and, potentially, in multiple copies;
(4) because it is an asexual form of reproduc-
tion, cloning confounds the meaning of ‘‘father’’ and
‘‘mother’’ and confuses the identity and kinship rela-
tions of any cloned child, and thus threatens to
weaken existing notions regarding who bears which
parental duties and responsibilities for children;
(5) because cloning requires no personal in-
volvement by the person whose genetic material is
used, cloning could easily be used to reproduce living
or deceased persons without their consent;
(6) creating cloned live-born human children
(sometimes called ‘‘reproductive cloning’’) nec-
essarily begins by creating cloned human embryos, a
process which some also propose as a way to create
embryos for research or as sources of cells and tis-
sues for possible treatment of other humans;
(7) the prospect of creating new human life
solely to be exploited and destroyed in this way has
been condemned on moral grounds by many, includ-
ing supporters of a right to abortion, as displaying
a profound disrespect for life, and recent scientific
advances with adult stem cells indicate that there
are fruitful and morally unproblematic alternatives
to this approach;
(8) in order to be effective, a ban on human
cloning must stop the cloning process at the begin-
ning because—
(A) cloning would take place within the
privacy of a doctor-patient relationship;
(B) the transfer of embryos to begin a
pregnancy is a simple procedure; and
(C) any government effort to prevent the
transfer of an existing embryo, or to prevent
birth once the transfer has occurred, would
raise substantial moral, legal, and practical
issues, so that it will be nearly impossible to
prevent attempts at ‘‘reproductive cloning’’ once
cloned human embryos are available in the lab-
oratory;
(9) the scientifically and medically useful prac-
tices of cloning of DNA fragments, known as molec-
ular cloning, the duplication of somatic cells (or
stem cells) in tissue culture, known as cell cloning,
and whole-organism or embryo cloning of nonhuman
animals are appropriate uses of medical technology;
(10) in the preamble to the 1998 Additional
Protocol on the Prohibition of Cloning Human
Beings the Council of Europe agreed that ‘‘the
instrumentalisation of human beings through the de-
liberate creation of genetically identical human
beings is contrary to human dignity and thus con-
stitutes a misuse of biology and medicine’’; and
(11) collaborative efforts to perform human
cloning are conducted in ways that affect interstate
and even international commerce, and the legal sta-
tus of cloning will have a great impact on how bio-
technology companies direct their resources for re-
search and development.
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON HUMAN CLONING.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Title 18, United States Code, is
amended by inserting after chapter 15, the following:
‘‘CHAPTER 16—HUMAN CLONING
‘‘Sec.
‘‘301. Definitions.
‘‘302. Prohibition on human cloning.
‘‘§ 301. Definitions
‘‘In this chapter:
‘‘(1) HUMAN
CLONING.—The term ‘human
cloning’ means human asexual reproduction, accom-
plished by introducing the nuclear material of a
human somatic cell into a fertilized or unfertilized
oocyte whose nucleus has been removed or inac-
tivated to produce a living organism (at any stage
of development) with a human or predominantly
human genetic constitution.
‘‘(2) SOMATIC CELL.—The term ‘somatic cell’
means a diploid cell (having a complete set of chro-
mosomes) obtained or derived from a living or de-
ceased human body at any stage of development.
‘‘§ 302. Prohibition on human cloning
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for any per-
son or entity, public or private, in or affecting interstate
commerce—
‘‘(1) to perform or attempt to perform human
cloning;
‘‘(2) to participate in an attempt to perform
human cloning; or
‘‘(3) to ship or receive the product of human
cloning for any purpose.
‘‘(b) IMPORTATION.—It shall be unlawful for any per-
son or entity, public or private, to import the product of
human cloning for any purpose.
‘‘(c) PENALTIES.—
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Any person or entity that
is convicted of violating any provision of this section
shall be fined under this section or imprisoned not
more than 10 years, or both.
‘‘(2) CIVIL
PENALTY.—Any person or entity
that is convicted of violating any provision of this
section shall be subject to, in the case of a violation
that involves the derivation of a pecuniary gain, a
civil penalty of not less than $1,000,000 and not
more than an amount equal to the amount of the
gross gain multiplied by 2, if that amount is greater
than $1,000,000.
‘‘(d) SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.—Nothing in this sec-
tion shall restrict areas of scientific research not specifi-
cally prohibited by this section, including research in the
use of nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques to
produce molecules, DNA, cells other than human embryos,
tissues, organs, plants, or animals other than humans.’’.
(b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of chapters
for part I of title 18, United States Code, is amended by
inserting after the item relating to chapter 15 the fol-
lowing:
‘‘16. Human Cloning ..........................................................................
301’’.
SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
It is the sense of Congress that—
(1) the Federal Government should advocate for
and join an international effort to prohibit human
cloning, as defined in section 301 of title 18, United
States Code, as added by this Act; and
(2) the President should commission a study, to
be conducted by the National Bioethics Advisory
Commission or a successor group, of the arguments
for and against the use of cloning to produce human
embryos solely for research, which study should—
(A) include a discussion of the need (if
any) for human cloning to produce medical ad-
vances, the ethical and legal aspects of human
cloning, and the possible impact of any decision
to permit human cloning for research upon ef-
forts to prevent human cloning for reproductive
purposes;
(B) include a review of new developments
in cloning technology which may require that
technical changes be made to section 3 of this
Act, to maintain the effectiveness of this Act in
prohibiting the asexual production of a new
human organism that is genetically virtually
identical to an existing or previously existing
human being; and
(C) be submitted to Congress and the
President for review not later than 5 years after
the date of enactment of this legislation.
Æ