CGS-authored

We remember Solomon as the wise man who once settled a dispute between two women who claimed the same child by ordering the baby split down the middle.

When one woman offered to surrender her claim rather than see the order carried out, Solomon judged her the true mother and awarded her the child.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill should consider that parable as they ponder their next steps, given the stalemate over cloning legislation that occurred in the Senate last week.

One Senate faction had sought to ban all human cloning, regardless of whether the process is used to make babies or create stem cell medicines. But that bill now appears to be badly flagging, if not dead.

There seems to be more life in a rival bill, advanced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to outlaw baby cloning but permit cloning research in connection with stem cell therapy.

An aide said Feinstein still hopes that, by adding extra rules to prevent research clones from being diverted into reproductive cloning labs, she can round up the 60 votes needed to prevent...