[00:03.81]1999 Passage4

[00:07.51]When a Scottish research team startled the world

[00:10.54]by revealing 3 months ago

[00:12.61]that it had cloned an adult sheep,

[00:14.94]President Clinton moved swiftly.

[00:17.86]Declaring that he was opposed

[00:19.93]to using this unusual animal husbandry technique

[00:23.34]to clone humans,

[00:24.93]he ordered that federal funds

[00:26.74]not be used for such an experiment

[00:29.76]--although no one had proposed to do so

[00:32.69]--and asked an independent panel

[00:34.78]of experts chaired by Princeton President Harold Shapiro

[00:39.31]to report back to the White House in 90 days

[00:42.74]with recommendations for a national policy

[00:45.43]on human cloning.

[00:47.96]That group

[00:49.26]--the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC)

[00:54.52]--has been working feverishly

[00:56.18]to put its wisdom on paper,

[00:58.50]and at a meeting on 17 May,

[01:01.13]members agreed on a near-final draft

[01:03.95]of their recommendations.

[01:06.37]NBAC will ask that Clinton's 90-day ban on federal funds

[01:11.91]for human cloning be extended indefinitely,

[01:15.75]and possibly that it be made law.

[01:18.67]But NBAC members

[01:20.73]are planning to word the recommendation narrowly

[01:23.95]to avoid new restrictions on research

[01:26.68]that involves the cloning of human DNA or cells

[01:30.61]--routine in molecular biology.

[01:33.85]The panel has not yet reached agreement

[01:36.27]on a crucial question, however,

[01:38.44]whether to recommend legislation

[01:40.56]that would make it a crime

[01:41.88]for private funding to be used for human cloning.

[01:45.61]In a draft preface to the recommendations,

[01:48.74]discussed at the 17 May meeting,

[01:51.61]Shapiro suggested that the panel

[01:53.47]had found a broad consensus that it would be

[01:56.90]"morally unacceptable to attempt to create

[02:00.12]a human child by adult nuclear cloning."

[02:03.65]Shapiro explained during the meeting

[02:06.07]that the moral doubt stems mainly from fears

[02:08.81]about the risk to the health of the child.

[02:12.14]The panel then informally accepted several general conclusions,

[02:16.47]although some details have not been settled.

[02:20.00]NBAC plans to call for a continued ban

[02:23.64]on federal government funding

[02:25.51]for any attempt to clone

[02:28.02]body cell nuclei to create a child.

[02:31.66]Because current federal law already forbids

[02:34.48]the use of federal funds to create embryos

[02:37.71](the earliest stage of human offspring before birth)

[02:42.03]for research or to knowingly endanger an embryo's life,

[02:46.58]NBAC will remain silent on embryo research.

[02:51.52]NBAC members also indicated

[02:54.11]that they would appeal to privately funded researchers

[02:57.03]and clinics not to try to clone humans

[03:00.46]by body cell nuclear transfer.

[03:03.08]But they were divided on whether to go further

[03:05.70]by calling for a federal law that would impose

[03:08.93]a complete ban on human cloning.

[03:11.55]Shapiro and most members

[03:13.17]favored an appeal for such legislation,

[03:16.17]but in a phone interview,

[03:17.79]he said this issue was still "up in the air."