wfn.org | United Methodist exec urges passing ban on human cloning

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

March 6, 2002        News media contact: Joretta Purdue7(202)
546-87227Washington     10-21-71B{086}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - A United Methodist agency staff executive has joined two
U.S. senators and activists from the left and the right in supporting
legislation to ban human cloning.

Jaydee Hanson joined Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.)
on March 5 in expressing the hope that the U.S. Senate will soon pass a bill
banning all human cloning. Brownback and Landrieu have proposed the
Brownback-Landrieu Human Cloning Prohibition Act (S. 1899), which has
attracted 23 co-sponsors from both parties. Brownback and co-sponsors Larry
E. Craig (R-Idaho) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) are United Methodists.

Hanson, an executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society,
likened the array of bills on this subject before the Senate to Jesus'
temptations in the wilderness, reflected in the period of Lent. Like Jesus,
Hanson said, "the Senate has before it a temptation to do good the wrong
way."

He observed that in 2000 the United Methodist General Conference, the
church's highest legislative body, called for a ban on the cloning of humans
and human embryos. He also noted that General Conference urged banning
"therapeutic, medical, research and commercial procedures" that generate
waste embryos. The assembly's resolutions are based on the belief that
people are stewards of creation and that technology has brought great
benefit and great harm to creation, he said.

"It is stem cell research, not the creation of human embryos by cloning,
that may hold the promise for treatments of many diseases," Hanson declared.
"The Senate must not confuse the desire of some to pursue a particular
research agenda with the desire of us all to live in that time foretold in
Isaiah 65:20 when no child will die in infancy and everyone will live into
old age."

Landrieu, referring to the possibility of cloning human embryos to provide a
source of embryonic stem cells, said that creating life simply for the
purpose of destroying it is immoral.

"There are safer, less worrisome means to the same end," she said. "Cloning
is like an unmarked and unchecked interstate system, with scientists racing
as fast as they can with no restrictions whatsoever.  It is up to Congress
to put up the speed limit signs before we have any casualties."

Brownback said the bill he is co-sponsoring has a broad spectrum of support,
including a coalition of groups on the left, in the middle and on the right.

"Human cloning is an issue of vast importance to our society - and for
humanity," he said. "It reveals the values we hold, and the worth we place
on human life." He urged action in the Senate "before technology overtakes
debate."

Genevieve Wood, an executive of the Family Research Council, warned that
human cloning is human cloning regardless of whether it is termed
reproductive or therapeutic.

"Those who support human cloning for research purposes see themselves as
potentially saving lives - and certainly that is a compassionate and worthy
goal - but there is no compassion in creating embryonic human beings and
then destroying them by harvesting their stem cells," she said. "This is
called cloning to kill."

Companies are beginning to control human reproduction, warned Jeremy Rifkin,
president of the Foundation on Economic Trends. He termed this patenting of
human embryos "commercial eugenics" and "dangerous."

Rifkin, who considers himself an activist on the left, and Wood, whose
Family Research Council is on the right, both voiced concern about
exploitation of women, especially poor women. Rifkin also warned that
characterization of either side of the debate along traditional
conservative-liberal lines defied the truth.  

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United Methodist News Service
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