3- to 5-Year Ban on Any Human Cloning Is Urged

WASHINGTON — Any attempt to clone a human would be “a premature experiment” carrying grave risks of an abnormality, and the technique should be outlawed for at least three to five years, a presidential advisory panel recommended Saturday.

“At this time it is morally unacceptable for anyone in the public or private sector, whether in a research or clinical setting, to attempt to create a child using somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning,” the National Bioethics Advisory Commission said in its final report to the president.

However, the 18-member panel left open the possibility that scientists using private funds would experiment in cloning human embryos.

Currently, federal funds may not be used for research involving human embryos, but privately funded efforts are legal. Though some antiabortion activists denounced what they called the “clone-and-kill option,” the commission decided against seeking a law prohibiting all research on the cloning of human embryos so long as the cloned embryos are not implanted in a woman’s womb.

The panel’s cautious, two-track set of recommendations marks the government’s first effort to come to grips with the phenomenon of cloning, or single-sex reproduction. But, if anything, the fact that the panel did not offer a definitive, unambiguous, up-or-down statement on human cloning merely underscores the complex moral and scientific issues raised by the technique.

“We all need more time on this. The message is to keep thinking,” said Alexander M. Capron, a commission member and a USC professor of law and medicine. “I don’t know where we will come out on this three to five years from now.”

On Feb. 23, cloning moved from science fiction to fact when British and Scottish scientists announced they had created a sheep named Dolly from the genes of her mother.

The success in bringing about this “delayed genetic twin” followed 277 earlier failures, the commission’s report noted, giving a powerful warning on the need for caution.

In response to the news of Dolly, President Clinton announced a ban on the use of federal funds for experiments in human cloning. He also appointed the panel of scientists, lawyers and ethicists to study the issue for 90 days and advise him on what should be done.

“At present, the use of this technique to create a child would be a premature experiment that would expose the fetus and the developing child to unacceptable risks,” the panel concluded. “At this time [it would be] an irresponsible, unethical and unprofessional act” to try to clone a human.

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The commission urged Congress to pass a new federal law outlawing the practice, but said the law should expire through a “sunset provision” after three to five years.

Whether human cloning “should be permanently banned is an open question,” it added. Its members are undecided on that issue, but agreed on the need for further inquiry and deliberation.

The commission’s report will be presented to Clinton early this week.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) has already said he wants to pass a federal ban on research involving human cloning.

“Creating human beings for our own purposes should be off limits to science,” Bond said.

But it is not clear Congress has the constitutional power to outlaw private research.

“It’s very much a gray area,” said University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, a constitutional expert who is editing a book on cloning.

Congress usually passes law under its power to regulate interstate commerce, he noted, but “it’s not obvious this [research] would be considered interstate commerce.” In addition, the 1st Amendment also protects the right to scientific inquiry, he said.

No one disputes, however, the government’s authority to ban the use of federal money, including support for colleges and universities, for human cloning research.

Much of the commission’s report tried to explain the process of cloning, to ponder the unanswered questions and to calm what it says are exaggerated fears.

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The mere thought of producing copies of human beings has been met by “widespread public discomfort, even revulsion,” the report says. Already, Argentina, Australia, Britain, Denmark, Germany and Spain have passed laws against human cloning.

But some of this apprehension is based on misunderstandings, the panel said.

Because human beings are more than their genes, cloning would not create “an exact copy” of another person with the same traits, talents and tastes. Identical twins, for example, have the same genes, yet they are surely not the same person.

“The idea that one could make through somatic cell nuclear transfer a team of Michael Jordans, a physics department of Albert Einsteins, or an opera chorus of Pavarottis, is simply false,” the report says. “Knowing the complete genetic makeup of an individual would not tell you what kind of person the individual would become.”

In the past, new attempts to exert “human control over nature” during the reproductive process have been often greeted with alarm, the report points out.

“Artificial insemination by donor, for example, was considered a form of adultery when first introduced in 1940,” it says. And in the late 1960s, the introduction of techniques to examine babies in the womb was met by fears that parents would use the advances “to select vanity characteristics” in their newborns, it adds.

A decade later, the birth of Louise Brown, the first baby conceived through in vitro fertilization, also spurred controversy and concern for the future.

“The initial fears gave way to cautious acceptance,” the report says, “but a wariness lingers that is easily reawakened with each new advance.”