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CNN Live At Daybreak
Cloning Announcement in U.S. Sparks Reaction Worldwide
Aired November 27, 2001 - 05:32 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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: In the United States it doesn't look like Congress will decide whether to ban human cloning before they adjourn for the year. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle spokesman says it's a complex issue that many lawmakers need time to research and that stated there have been plenty of cloning discussions on Capitol Hill over the last 24 hours. Those talks are prompted by a Massachusetts company's announcement that scientists have cloned a six-cell human embryo.
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SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: 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 the young human?
REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: A fully formed human being's life is a lot more -- is more -- is a lot more important morally than the life of a clump of cells, which have no senses, no differentiation, no brain, no nothing -- just a clump of cells smaller than the head of a pin. I don't think that's a human being.
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KELLEY: Well the House voted to ban cloning last summer, but the Senate has yet to take it up. They're expected to hold extensive hearings on the matter sometime in the spring. Politicians are not the only ones talking about the Massachusetts company's success, cloning a human embryo.
Reaction crackled around the globe at lightning bolt speed and as CNN's Margaret Lowrie reports, Europe is ready to act rather than react.
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MARGARET LOWRIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 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 genetics experts say the U.S. announcement raises significant ethical questions.
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 uneasy according to the coordinator of the European Parliament's temporary committee on human genetics.
EVELYN GEBHARDT, EU PARLIAMENT MEMBER: It could 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 or such.
LOWRIE: At least in theory, Europe has banned human cloning for reproductive purposes under the EU charter on fundamental rights. But translating this into national laws may be difficult.
As Britain rushes to close its loophole, Europe remains a legal crazy quilt with each of the EU's 15 states taking their own approach.
France and Italy are still debating cloning for therapeutic research. Italy is home to flamboyant fertility doctor Sevarino Anternori (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 so.
Belgium does not regulate therapeutic cloning. Local ethics committees control individual projects. However experts say Belgium may follow Britain's example soon. Germany and Spain explicitly ban human cloning for any reason.
GEBHARDT: The only thing we can do on European level is that we define which research we will finance on European level. And we did make a decision to -- in the last two weeks -- where we did say it can be financed in cases where it is the ethical committees will allow that and to only where it is not prohibited and that is what...
LOWRIE: She wants the EU to adopt a common approach to cloning for therapeutic ends, but given the different traditions in cultures of the European nations, she believes this is likely to be a long way off.
Margaret Lowrie, CNN, London.
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