Twinning/cloning laws are more regulated elsewhere
U.S. falls short on reproductive mandates
Despite outcries from religious and medical groups on both sides of the argument, the United States remains one of the few countries in the developed world that doesn’t regulate how its citizens reproduce themselves. This country has no specific laws regulating reproductive treatment and/or research by privately funded sources.
Several states have enacted statutes that prohibit payment for embryos for any purpose. Others have differences regarding everything from cryopreservation to cloning (twinning). Statewide differences in regulations have advantages and disadvantages, says Andrea Bonnicksen, PhD, professor of political science at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL, who has studied laws on reproductive science for many years.
Using cloning as an example, she says states could serve as demonstration projects for differing models of regulation. An effective interplay between states would then lead to a model uniform statute for the entire country.
Currently there are no states that ban cloning or twinning; eight states have laws on the books with language that could potentially be interpreted to prohibit the practice. These states are Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Only 23 states have laws that address embryo research or commercialization.
The United States generally has chosen to regulate reproductive research and treatment through tacit withholding of federal funding, Bonnicksen asserts. Withholding funding leads to a public perception that such scientific work is not worthy, and most scientists err on the side of caution, she argues.
Human embryo research, including cloning, is not specifically forbidden for federal or private agencies under current federal law. Indeed, President Clinton stated in a March 4 directive banning the use of federal funds for use in human cloning research, that Congress prohibits funding through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for certain human embryo research. These restrictions do not explicitly cover human embryos created for implantation and do not cover all federal agencies.
Bonnicksen warns that legislators should act prudently before passing any laws on cloning. "We cannot make laws based on psychological reactions rather than on scientific inquiry," she argues. When laws are hastily conceived and passed due to public outcries, they can end up having little validity, she argues.
For example, she cites the Medical Procedures Act passed in Victoria, Australia in 1984. The law was a response to a national commission report concerned about in vitro fertilization. The law banned human cloning and a number of other procedures. But the wording was so vague that it also created problems for funding research on gene therapy and other necessary and beneficial research, she says.1,2 Several years later, the Australian government rewrote the law.
References
1. Brumby M, Kasimba P. When is cloning lawful? Journal of In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer 1987; 14:198-204.
2. Dawson K. In vitro fertilizations: Legislation and Problems of Research. Br Med J 1987; 295:1,184-1,186.
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