Odd Mix of Activists Stands Together against Cloning
By Richard Willing,
USA Today
| 07. 16. 2001
Coalition Supports Bill That Could Mean Fines, Prison Time for Scientists Involved in Practice
WASHINGTON--Activists on both sides of the abortion issue are joining
forces this week to push for a total ban on human cloning.
The unusual coalition is lobbying for a bill that would impose a
10-year prison sentence and $1 million fine on scientists who practice
cloning for reproduction or research.
That bill's chief sponsor is Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., who opposes
abortion. The measure is expected to be taken up as early as Thursday
and move swiftly through the House Judiciary Committee.
A rival bill that would ban cloning to create human babies but permit
cloning for research use has attracted less support. Its sponsor,
Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., says the two bills seem destined to collide.
Cloning works by placing the nucleus of an adult cell into an egg
cell from which the center has been removed, producing an embryo that
is a genetic copy of the adult.
Cloning has been attempted with other mammals. In 1997, a cloned
baby sheep was produced in Scotland from a cell taken from an adult
animal. It was delivered by a surrogate...
Related Articles
By Megan Mineiro and Caroline Kitchener, The New York Times | 10.05.2025
Kathleen Whipple and her husband had dreamed of a big family, but struggled to conceive.
Upon his return from an overseas deployment with the Navy, the couple learned from a fertility doctor that her husband’s sperm count was half of...
By Alondra Nelson, Science | 09.11.2025
In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months have made visible the stakes of the unchecked use...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
By Johana Bhuiyan, The Guardian | 09.23.2025
In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which...
