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CNN Live Today

Interview with Jerrold Nadler, Sam Brownback

Aired November 26, 2001 - 16:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Cloning research is one example of how scientific advances can outpace modern law. Across Europe, for example, national laws governing cloning differ dramatically from country to country. In London CNN's Margaret Lowrie reports that the House of Lords is working on legislation that would ban human cloning, but would allow research to continue on so-called therapeutic cloning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARGARET LOWRIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Britain's new legislation came after its high court ruled earlier this month that contrary to what the government believed, existing British law does not prohibit cloning embryos for reproductive purposes. British genetic experts say the U.S. announcement raises significant ethical questions.

DR. PATRICK DIXON, GENETICS EXPERT: Over 170 nations of the world have no legislation whatsoever, preventing the birth of human clones. Today's announcement draws that step ever closer. We need global agreement, and we need it urgently, or we will see clones born in many countries of the world.

LOWRIE: The news from the U.S. makes European legislators are uneasy, according to the coordinator of the European Parliament temporary committee on human genetics.

EVELYN GEBHARDT, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: It will not be accepted in Europe. I think in the whole of Europe it will not be accepted, that a person's embryos are created by cloning for other purposes than for research, for health care of the people, not for life.

LOWRIE: At least in theory, Europe has banned human cloning for reproductive purposes under the E.U. Charter on fundamental rights, but translating this into national laws may be difficult. As Britain rushes to close its loop hole, Europe remains a legal crazy quilt, with each of the E.U.'s 15 states taking their own approach. France and Italy are still debating cloning for therapeutic research. Italy is home to flamboyant fertility doctor Severino Antonori (ph) , who claims he will soon be able to clone embryos for implantation in the womb, but says he would have to leave Italy in order to do.

Belgium does not regulate therapeutic cloning. Local ethics committees control individual products. However, experts say, Belgium may follow Britain's example soon. Germany and Spain explicitly ban human cloning for any reason.

GABHARDT: The only thing we can do on European level is that we define which research we will finance in Europe and level and we each make a decision in the last two weeks where we say it can be financed in cases where it is the ethical committees will allow that, and only where it is not prohibited.

LOWRIE: She wants the E.U. to adopt a common approach to cloning for therapeutic ends, but given the different traditions and cultures of the European nations, she believes this is likely to be a long way off.

Margaret Lowrie CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Joining me now for more on the cloning debate, Senator -- United States Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican; And from New York, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who is a Democrat.

Senator, I want to begin with you. This announcement out of Massachusetts yesterday obviously created a flurry, but today we have scientists saying, maybe we are making too much of this, that actually the experiment failed, because the embryo died. They were only able to create 6 cells. Are we all perhaps overreacting?

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: I don't think we are overreacting. We have been talking for some period of time about banning human cloning of all types in the United States. That's passed the House of Representatives. The president is calling for it and that had happened before this announcement of yesterday about the cloned human being created.

I found earlier in the Senate there were a number of people saying well this is in the scientific realm of possibility but not probability. I think what yesterday said is that this is a likelihood to happen unless it is specifically banned here, and then I think we need to talk about a global discussion, a global protocol about human cloning all together.

WOODRUFF: And just to be clear, Senator, you are talking about banning all types of cloning for any purpose?

BROWNBACK: All types, because I don't know that there's a distinction between if you create one for reproductive purposes, or you create one for destructive research purposes. You are creating something that has moral significance to it. And then to just create it and destroy it or to research on it, or for reproductive purposes, I think that is something where most of society is saying, I don't think we want to go there.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Nadler, why isn't this the right thing to do, to go ahead and just say "no" to all types of cloning?

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Well everyone, I think, agrees that we ought to ban cloning for reproductive purposes, especially because as of now you couldn't do that without creating a lot of deformed human beings.

I don't think it is right to ban cloning for, Senator Brownback says, destructive research. It's not destructive research. It's research to learn how to cure diseases, how to cure hepatitis, how to cure diabetes, how to cure Parkinson's, Muscular Dystrophy, heart disease, a million different things. And I think it is morally, very worthwhile, and I think the moral balance, if you could, by creating an embryo of 100 cells, cure someone and enable that person to live, I think the moral balance is very much to extend life.

Because I think a human being -- a fully-formed human being's life -- is a lot more, it's a lot more important, morally, than the life of a clump of cells which has no sense, no differentiation, no brain, no nothing, just a clump of cells smaller than the head of a pin. I don't think that is a human being.

And that is what the debate really is, the people like Senator Bownback are saying that that little embryo, smaller than the head of a pin, is a full human being. Most of us disagree.

WOODRUFF: I just want to clarify. When you say an embryo for research, are you talking about a complete human embryo? Or are you talking about something less than that?

JERROLD: Well, define the terms. We are talking about a clump of cells, about 100 cells, to 150 cells, in totality, smaller than the head of a pin which, if implanted into a uterus might grow into a human being, but if not implanted into a uterus can be used to save people's lives, and it shouldn't be permitted to be implanted and to grow into a human being, but to save people's lives or to lead to research to save people's lives is very well worth doing.

WOODRUFF: Senator, what about the Congressman's argument that if you are talking about morality here, the moral thing to do would be to do this research to help people.

BROWNBACK: You know, we are all just clumps of cells. At some point in time we were a small clump or a larger clump at this point in time. And his point about the morality of the research, we have research going on in ethical areas that none of us have any problems with on adult stem cell work. And going quite well and it is leading to and it is even causing and having cures in some areas. But here -- here -- we are talking about status of a young human. And we should have a full debate about that issue and say, is there any moral significant whatsoever to the young human?

You know, we preserve endangered species' eggs from American Bald Eagles. The Bald Eagle, we say you can't destroy that. There's a penalty for doing that, because if left alone and nurtured this becomes a Bald Eagle. Do we provide less protection to a young human? Is that the sort of thing that we should be doing when we can do this sort of research in other ethical ways that I would fully support, that I think the vast majority of Americans would?

Plus, at what point in time do you say, "We can get this research on a young human embryo and this will be good; what if we go ahead and fully birth this young human, research on that human, then?" We could find a lot of things there, too.

NADLER: Well, that's absurd.

BROWNBACK: It's not absurd at all.

NADLER: First of all, you cannot do a lot of the kind of research or treatment with adult stem cells that you can do with embryonic stem cells.

BROWNBACK: That's not true either.

NADLER: Oh, it certainly is. And if it weren't true, the scientists wouldn't be disputing it.

But second of all, we permit -- whether you like it or not, in this country, it's a constitutional right for a woman to have an abortion. An abortion is to destroy a fetus much older than and visibly human, unlike an embryo, which is the size -- less than the size of a head of a pin. So you should have at least the same legal right.

Now, some people have a religious point of view. And they are entitled to it -- or a moral point of view -- and they are entitled to it -- that an embryo, be it one cell or 100 cells, smaller than the head of a pin, no senses, no brain, no anything, is the same as a human being. I don't agree with that. And they shouldn't impose that view on people who are desperate for cures from that to preserve life. To me, that's much more important morally.

WOODRUFF: Let me finally ask you both: The House passed legislation which would ban all forms of cloning for any purpose.

Senator Brownback, that comes up in the Senate, what is likely to happen there?

BROWNBACK: Well, I think it would pass in the Senate, particularly with this announcement from yesterday that people are already cloning humans, because I think there's this initial reaction to it. That's not a place we should be going. We shouldn't be creating them.

WOODRUFF: But, again, I just would point out this comment from scientists saying they didn't -- they failed, in effect. They didn't create an embryo. They have created six cells.

BROWNBACK: Well, six -- what stage do you want to stop at? If we are going to stop at some stage, we should stop either at the beginning or let it go forward to whatever sort of mass of cells you want to go to.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Nadler, what's your sense? I know you are in the House and your -- the House has already passed this. But what do you hear beyond this?

NADLER: In the House, this was passed with almost no debate, with a lot of hysteria when people didn't really understand -- or many didn't -- the difference between therapeutic cloning to create a clump of cells to use for stem cell research, and eventually to cure diseases, and reproducing human beings. The Senate I hope will fulfill its role with a more deliberative body and act more intelligently and more humanely.

WOODRUFF: Well, gentlemen, we are going to have to leave it there. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, we thank you both very much. It's good to see you.

BROWNBACK: Thanks, Judy. Thank you.

NADLER: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Thank you.

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