Panel Favors Cloning Moratorium but Not Ban

WASHINGTON — A panel picked by President Bush to advise him on bioethics declined Thursday to endorse his call for a ban on human cloning in medical research, arguing instead for a four-year moratorium aimed at encouraging more debate.

The recommendation from the President’s Council on Bioethics comes at a politically sensitive time. The House has passed the cloning ban that Bush favors; in the Senate, opinion is divided. Some senators believe that cloning should remain a legal tool of disease research. Neither side has the 60 votes needed to pass legislation.

The bioethics council said that the nation itself is divided about cloning and that a moratorium would allow time “to seek moral consensus.”

“A national discourse on this subject has not yet taken place in full,” a majority of the panel said in a report released Thursday after six months of discussion. A moratorium would force both sides “to make their full case before the public.”

The call for a moratorium adds color to what already is an emotional debate. But it does nothing to break the legislative impasse, Senate aides on both sides of the issue said.

Currently, no senator has filed legislation to impose a moratorium on research cloning, as the ethics panel advised. One Senate proposal would ban cloning for any purpose, while another would ban only cloning to produce children, allowing research cloning to continue.

Moreover, the ethics panel itself was sharply divided. Of the 18 members, 10 favored a moratorium; seven said researchers should be free to use cloning, but under more government regulation. One member did not vote.

All voting members of the panel recommended a ban on cloning to produce a child who is a genetic copy of a single adult, a view shared by Bush and most members of Congress.

Dr. Leon Kass, the University of Chicago professor who is chairman of the council, said the group did not try to seek consensus but instead aimed to lay out various views on cloning as forcefully as possible.

“The Senate will do what it will, but I hope this report rekindles an interest in finding a way around the impasse,” Kass said, referring to the logjam in Congress. “A moratorium on all human cloning so that the debate can continue--I think that would be a wonderful conclusion.”

Kass said that Bush was given a copy of the panel’s report Wednesday night but that he had not talked with the president about its findings. Bush already has urged the Senate to ban cloning for any purpose.

Seven members of the panel agreed with Bush that a total ban is needed, while seven others supported going ahead with research immediately. Taking a middle course were three who urged a four-year moratorium. The supporters of a total ban joined them to make a majority, saying a moratorium would give them time “to make our case in a more democratic way.”

In cloning, a cell from one person is fused with an egg cell to produce an embryo, which is a genetic copy of the original cell donor.

Scientists have said that studying cloned embryos and the cells within them may reveal the basic mechanisms of cell function and possibly give clues to how disease develops. They also envision using the technique to produce stem cells, which in turn might be fashioned into cells and tissues for transplant to patients.

In a section laying out the case for this type of research, the panel report said it “may offer uniquely useful ways of investigating and possibly treating many chronic, debilitating diseases and disabilities, providing aid and relief to millions.”

Opponents say that stem cell research is immoral because it starts with the destruction of a human embryo and that cloning is a step toward creating humans with genetically enhanced traits. Others worry that women will be exploited as companies create a market for the eggs needed in cloning.

“We find it disquieting, even somewhat ignoble, to treat what are in fact seeds of the next generation as mere raw material for satisfying the needs of our own,” the report said in a section making the case to ban research cloning.

Congressional aides said the report was welcomed. But Erik Hotmire, spokesman for Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), lead sponsor of a bill to ban human cloning for any purpose, said it did not change the state of play in the Senate.

A patient advocacy group, the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, said it would present the ethics panel today with a petition against a moratorium or ban on research cloning.

The group said it had gathered signatures from 2,000 teachers and scientists in medical schools and university science departments across the country, including eight Nobel laureates and people from all 50 states.