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CNN Live At Daybreak

House to Consider Legislation Banning All Cloning

Aired June 20, 2001 - 07:15   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Also on the Hill today, a House subcommittee on health takes up two bills to ban cloning, both human and otherwise. CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen following this story.

Elizabeth, while Congress debates this, why don't you bring us up to speed. Exactly where are we in terms of being able to clone a human?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are two groups that have been trying to clone human beings and one of the groups told us in March that they said, "We think next month in April that we'll be ready to have a pregnancy."

So, in other words, what you do is you do the cloning in the laboratory and then you actually then impregnate a woman, you know, through artificial means, obviously, with that -- with that cloned embryo. And this group is called the Raelians, and they say, "Hey, we're" -- they said, "We're ready to do this now."

But they won't tell us if they do have a pregnancy. It's now June, so theoretically they could have a two-month gestational pregnancy. But they won't tell us if they could -- "We're not going to tell you anything until we actually have baby." So, they could be bluffing, they could have a pregnancy, we just don't know.

And there's also another group which is Italians and folks also from Cyprus who have gotten together and they say that they're also ready to go.

So the concern is, in fact, the science is ready...

LIN: Right.

COHEN: ... but that we haven't figured out how to regulate it yet.

LIN: Right, exactly. Well, what happens if cloning is actually banned, are there -- are there implications. . .

COHEN: Well...

LIN: ... beyond just the cloning issue? COHEN: Exactly. The problem is that if you ban cloning you might also be banning some other things that many people see as good. The reason why is that the techniques used in human cloning are also used in scientific research that could -- on stem cells, which could provide cures and treatments for all sorts of diseases, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, kind of you name it.

So, what they -- what legislators want to do is they want to ban human cloning because they don't see any value in that, but they want to make sure that they don't ban those techniques that could be used for good things.

LIN: So, the language in any bill is actually important...

COHEN: Exactly.

LIN: ... whether cloning goes ahead or not, or even if they decide to regulate cloning it can effect other research.

COHEN: Exactly.

LIN: What are the chances you think -- if you're a gambling woman, what are the chances you think one of these bills is going to pass?

COHEN: I would guess that they will do some kind of human cloning, maybe not this session, maybe in the next session, because there really does seem to be a lot of energy behind it. There aren't that many groups that are saying, "Yes, let's clone a human being."

And many other countries have banned it, Israel, France, Germany, a whole bunch of other countries. So there's a lot of momentum behind it because most people don't really see a lot of value in cloning a human being, but they've haven't quite figured out how to do it yet.

LIN: Perhaps it's just hard to imagine someone just like you -- being about to produce someone just like you.

COHEN: Exactly. But apparently the science is -- they say that they're ready.

LIN: All right. Thanks so much, Elizabeth, we'll see what happens on Capitol Hill.

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