This is a non-scientific term created for political purposes. Cloning advocates try to say that a human embryo is not “life” until it is implanted in a woman’s womb. This opens the door to all forms of therapeutic cloning experiments on human embryos.

 

Some scientists and politicians use the “implantation argument” to say that SCNT does not create life. That is wrong. To say a cloned embryo is not life is junk science.

 

Cloning advocates will try to downplay the humanity of the embryo by referring to it as microscopic or a cluster of cells.  Do not be misled. An embryo is a human being.

 

 

Human cloning is legal in Iowa.

 

Iowa’s Human Cloning Ban (Iowa Code 707B) was overturned by the Iowa Congress and signed into law by Governor Chet Culver on February 28, 2007. The legislation permitted scientists to create human embryos by cloning and do whatever they wanted with the cloned humans. Scientists can grow human embryos to any stage of development for any reason—including the harvesting body parts. 

 

Iowa will now have a reputation for the farming of humans.

 

Advocates of this “Clone and Kill Legislation,” misled the public by arguing that the legislation prohibited cloning, because it prohibited “implantation” of a cloned embryo. Again, junk science. Implantation is not “cloning.” At the end of the SCNT process, you have a new human being. The law, in effect, opened up the floodgates to all types of cloning.

 

Both the media and politicians in Iowa who backed the Clone and Kill Bill provided false information, claiming that Iowa had a so-called stem cell research ban and if reversed would permit scientist to use embryos to heal people. This was another lie. Before the legislation, all forms of stem cell research – both adult and embryonic – were legal in Iowa. There was nothing in state law that prevented scientists from using embryos for research.

 

The question remains, “Why did politicians and the press avoid the words “human cloning?” The easy answer is that they were fully aware that there was NO public support for human cloning, nor would the public support a repeal of the ban.

 

 

 

Iowa Right to Life Committee agrees that adult stem cell research is a wonderful blessing. But embryonic stem cell research is not. We fully support research using adult stem cell, which is already benefiting 73 diseases. Our opposition to embryonic stem cell research is both moral and practical. From the moral aspect, it will turn humans into a commodity that will create cloning farms to kill the embryos for research. From a practical standpoint, embryonic stem cell research is unsuccessful, curing no one--not even a mouse.   

 

The repeal of the ban on human cloning will create a new demand in Iowa for human egg donors. The bill does not prevent corporations from buying young women’s eggs, which scientists will need in order to begin cloning humans. College students in need of money will be the most likely targets. The process to retrieve women’s eggs is a painful and dangerous process from which many women have died and thousands have suffered complications.

 

 

 

Proponents of the Clone and Kill legislation spread false claims that Iowa had a stem cell research ban. The title of the bill, SF 162, itself was deceptive: “Iowa Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative.”  

Misleading statements like these led many legislators to wonder who to trust, but the truth was in the language of the Iowa Code itself:

 

707B.1  TITLE.
This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the "Human Cloning
Prohibition Act."

2002 Acts, ch 1127, §1
707B.2  PURPOSE.
It is the purpose of this chapter to prohibit human cloning for any purpose, whether for reproductive cloning or therapeutic cloning.

2002 Acts, ch 1127, §2
707B.3  DEFINITIONS.
2002 Acts, ch 1127, §3
707B.4  HUMAN CLONING -- PROHIBITIONS -- EXCEPTIONS -- PENALTY.