Prepared
Witness Testimony
The Committee on Energy and Commerce
W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, Chairman
H.R. 1644, Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001, and H.R.____, Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001
Subcommittee on Health
June 20, 2001
10:15 AM
2123 Rayburn House Office Building
Ms. Judy Norsignian
Executive Directo
Boston Women's Health Book Collective
c/o Boston University School of Public Health
715 Alban Street
Talbot Building, West-1 Room 120
Boston, MA, 02118
I am Judy Norsigian, the Executive Director of
the Boston Women's Health Book Collective (BWHBC), co-authors of Our Bodies,
Ourselves, the most widely read book about women's health and sexuality
since it was first published in 1970. There are now 4 1/2 million copies in
print in 20 languages around the world, with 10 more editions on the way. The
7th and latest English language edition in the United States is entitled Our
Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century. The Spanish language cultural
adaptation - Nuestros Cuerpos, Nuestras Vidas - was published last
year. Our organization has also produced similar books for teenagers and for
older women and sustains a variety of advocacy and activist efforts related to
the health of women, families and communities. We have a long track record in
the field of reproductive rights and reproductive health.
The BWHBC joins many other national and
international organizations in calling for a universal ban on human reproductive
cloning. To allow the creation of human clones would open the door to treating
our children like manufactured objects. It would violate deeply and widely held
values concerning human individuality and dignity. It would pave the way for
unprecedented new forms of eugenics. And it would serve no justifiable purpose.
Supporters of women's health and reproductive
rights have particular reasons to oppose human cloning. Those who encourage
human cloning appear oblivious to the enormous risks to women and children's
health that human cloning would pose. There is no way that human cloning could
be developed without, in effect, mass experimentation on human beings-women
and children-of a sort that has been outlawed since the formulation of the
Nuremberg Principles following World War II.
Further, cloning advocates are seeking to
appropriate the language of reproductive rights to support their case. This is a
travesty. There is an immense difference between seeking to end an unwanted
pregnancy and seeking to create a genetic duplicate human being. Our opposition
to human cloning in no way diminishes our support for a woman's right to safe,
legal, and accessible contraception and abortion services.
For these reasons, we call for a permanent ban on
the creation of cloned human beings.
Some medical researchers support the creation of
clonal human embryos for experimental purposes leading to potential therapeutic
applications. While we do not in principle oppose the use of human embryos for
valid medical research, including their use to generate embryonic stem cells, we
do oppose the creation of clonal human embryos. To allow this procedure would
make it all but impossible to enforce the ban on the creation of fully formed
human clones. Further, it would open the door to other, more profound forms of
human genetic manipulation. For these reasons, we call for at least a moratorium
on the creation of clonal human embryos for research purposes. During such a
period the many non-controversial alternatives to using clonal embryos for these
purposes could be explored.
More than thirty countries worldwide have already
banned the creation of human clones and/or imposed constraints on the creation
of clonal embryos. It is time for the United States to do likewise. The vast
majority of women's health and reproductive rights advocates want this to
happen. The future of our common humanity is at stake.
# # #
The
Committee on Energy and Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-2927
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