US cloning debates continue

In a surprising development, the US Congress is facing calls from a broad coalition of environmentalists, feminists, academics, doctors, biologists, lawyers, ethicists and human rights and other activists to impose a moratorium on medical research involving human cloning.

The group, which has 100 members, has signed a letter addressed to senior members of the US Senate, calling for a total ban on reproductive cloning and an indefinite moratorium on therapeutic cloning. Marcy Darnovsky, a spokeswoman for the group and the Californian Centre for Genetics and Society, said that 'human cloning could be a gateway to a frightening new kind of eugenics, where discrimination and inequality are permanently written into our genetic code'.

The US Senate is currently debating a number of cloning-related bills. The letter comes as lobbying in the Senate intensifies, and individual states consider laws relating to cloning. The Kentucky  and Florida Senates are currently debating bills that will ban all forms of human cloning, while Kansas has given tentative approval to a ban on cloning and any other research involving the destruction of human embryos.

In the US Senate, majority leader Tom Daschle has indicated that a debate on cloning legislation will take place in April or May. One bill before the Senate would ban and criminalise all human cloning. The other would ban reproductive cloning but allow cloning for medical research. Both sides of the cloning debate say that senators are about evenly split on the issue, with approximately 20 senators undecided.