Lawmakers Wrestle With "Therapeutic Cloning" Ban

For many Missouri legislators, the real question is if cloned embryos created in a petri dish through a procedure known as "therapeutic cloning" constitute human life.

Legislators who consider themselves firmly anti-abortion are torn over banning the procedure because of uncertainty whether the cells (often the size of a pin point) are, in fact, human.

The controversy surrounds a bill that seeks to outlaw therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. In therapeutic cloning, the nucleus of an unfertilized woman's egg is removed and replaced with the nucleus of another cell from a human body. The egg is then stimulated to divide, as it would when fertilized by a sperm, and the stem cells are harvested.

Republican Gov. Matt Blunt, who is opposed to abortion, said he supports therapeutic cloning because he does not believe it results in human life because the egg is not fertilized. As the bill stands, Blunt said he likely would veto it.

Sen. Charles Wheeler, a medical doctor, agrees.

"I believe you have to have a sperm fertilize an egg, and in somatic cell nuclear transfer there is no sperm. I feel that you cannot indict a physician for wanting to use a non-sperm structure to produce a heart cell or a brain cell," said Wheeler, D-Kansas City.

But Dr. Robert Onder, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Washington University who supports the ban, testified to a Senate committee that therapeutic cloning creates life. As evidence, he noted that Dolly the cloned sheep was created through somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, said he is struggling to decide if therapeutic cloning results in "life or Frankenstein."


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