SEND OUT THE CLONES DUELING HUMAN CLONING BILLS are expected to come to the floor of the House for a vote on Tuesday, July 31. The Weldon-Stupak Human Cloning Prohibition Act (the “good bill,” for short) would ban all human cloning. The Greenwood Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001 (the “bad bill”) actually paves the way for the assembly-line production of human embryos for bio-industrial use. It prohibits only the growing of clones into children. As our contributing editor Charles Krauthammer argues persuasively in his July 27 syndicated column, Greenwood’s bill “is a nightmare and an abomination. First of all, once the industry of cloning human embryos has begun and thousands are being created, grown, bought and sold, who is going to prevent them from being implanted in a woman and developed into a cloned child? “Even more perversely, when that inevitably occurs, what is the federal government going to do: Force that woman to abort the clone? “Greenwood sanctions, licenses and protects the launching of the most ghoulish and dangerous enterprise in modern scientific history: the creation of nascent cloned human life for the sole purpose of its exploitation and destruction.” Krauthammer, a qualified supporter of controversial embryonic stem cell research, then connects the political dots on these two issues: “When Sen. Bill Frist made that brilliant presentation on the floor of the Senate supporting stem cell research, he included among his conditions a total ban on creating human embryos just to be stem cell farms. “Why, then, are so many stem cell supporters in Congress lining up behind a supposedly ‘anti-cloning bill’ [the Greenwood bill] that would, in fact, legalize the creation of cloned human embryos solely for purposes of research and destruction? … “If Weldon is stopped, the game is up. If Congress cannot pass the Weldon ban on cloning, then stem cell research itself must not be supported either—because then all the vaunted promises about not permitting the creation of human embryos solely for their exploitation and destruction will have been shown in advance to be a fraud.” THE SCRAPBOOK, which was always skeptical about the Frist compromise on embryonic stem cells, thinks Krauthammer has just uncovered its faultline. We look forward to the Fristian offensive against cloning. STEM CELL DISHONESTY OUR BIOETHICS CORRESPONDENT Wesley J. Smith notes that the media pack has taken sides in the debate over federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. They’re in favor. Stories with the potential to promote federal funding of such research receive brass band coverage. Research advances involving stem cells obtained by ethically unobjectionable means are buried, if reported at all. One recent example: Stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood (a practice to which no one objects) have improved the health of a 13-year-old Arizona boy dying from leukemia, who received the experimental treatment when no matching bone marrow donor could be found. Carlos Valencia on July 24 passed his 100th day of survival, a “milestone” according to his doctors. Yet, other than a few short wire stories, the media has been generally uninterested. Contrast the subdued reporting about this human research breakthrough with the hype last week when researchers claimed that fetal stem cells had partially restored the power of movement in disabled mice. This was widely portrayed as a development likely to increase the chances of federal funding for stem cell research. There is actually scant connection between the mouse experiment and embryonic stem cell research, though. The tissues involved were extracted from tissues of a fetus who died at five to eight weeks gestation. The death of the fetus was not planned for research purposes. Indeed, research of this kind is already eligible for federal funding. And the scientist in charge acknowledged as much. No, this press release was about lobbying. Researchers admitted releasing videotapes of the mobile mice before their study was even published in a peer reviewed journal in the hope of pressuring the White House. As one scientist told the New York Times, “given the political climate it was important for the people in power to have visual proof that embryonic stem cells have promise.” Meantime, Rep. David Weldon—the same fellow who sponsored the good cloning bill—has offered to debate Bill Frist, Orrin Hatch, or any of the 59 senators who support embryonic stem cell research. According to the Family Research Council, which has been trying to facilitate such an encounter, there have been no takers yet. THE CLINTON LEGACY, CONT. WILLIAM PERRY PENDLEY, PRESIDENT OF THE MOUNTAIN States Legal Foundation and attorney for Randy Pech in the Supreme Court’s forthcoming Adarand case (see our editorial “Adarand, Again,” in the July 30 issue), calls THE SCRAPBOOK’s attention to yet another Clinton-era race-preferences legacy now haunting the Bush administration. It seems there’s something called the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination that the United States joined in 1994. It seems the United Nations requires periodic compliance reports from countries adhering to the Convention. It seems the Clinton administration went six years—and missed three deadlines—before filing its first such report, in September 2000. And it seems this report has a certain…aroma. Proof that racism is alive and well in America, the Clinton report advises the U.N., is the fact that “too many persons do not believe that racial discrimination is a common or active form of mistreatment and are therefore less supportive of race-conscious remedial actions.” Got that? Because an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose affirmative action, this country is racist. The International Convention that prompted President Clinton to file this ridiculous document with the United Nations appears—by its plain text—to forbid affirmative action. Sayeth Article I: “In this Convention, the term ‘racial discrimination’ shall mean any distinction, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.” The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is actually scheduled to review American compliance with the Convention this week. The Bush administration should not participate in this farce. The administration has already admirably threatened to boycott the U.N. Committee’s upcoming World Racism conference because it looks likely to be a hate-Israel festival. So as long as the State Department’s in an anti-defamation mood, it should see to it that its own Clinton-era documents defaming this country are retracted. FILIBUSTER CONFIDENTIAL SCRAPBOOK READER HUGH NEWTON sends a postscript to last week’s item on the revival of the filibuster. We had reported on the plight of a filibustering St. Louis alderman whose aides “held a tablecloth, sheet and quilt around her while she appeared to use a wastebasket to urinate.” We further reported that Strom Thurmond had avoided such difficulty during a 24-hour filibuster in 1957 by taking a steam bath to dehydrate himself ahead of time. Newton, the legendary Washington P.R. man, suggests another explanation. In the mid-’60s, when he was active in the National Right to Work Committee, Newton says he helped Thurmond and Everett Dirksen avoid answering nature’s call during filibusters by giving them “something called a motorman’s friend—I believe that’s what it was called—used by trolley operators for many years in the early 20th century.” Could this have been Strom’s secret back in 1957? We may never know (not that we necessarily want to). And could the alderman have benefited? If not, does this mean filibusters are gender-biased? Stay tuned.
