Press Room

Contact: Peggy Hamill, State Director
Matt Sande, Legislative Affairs Director
(262) 796-1111, (414) 416-0489 or info@prolifewisconsin.org

Pro-Life Wisconsin Denounces
AMA Endorsement of Research Cloning

The American Medical Association (AMA) today formally endorsed human cloning for research purposes, citing it as a medically ethical procedure but permitting physicians who morally oppose the practice to refuse to perform it. So-called “therapeutic” or “research” cloning involves the creation of human embryos for the sole purpose of extracting their stem cells, a procedure which necessarily results in the destruction of the human embryo.

Pro-Life Wisconsin denounced the move, emphasizing that thousands of physicians across the state and nation believe in the sanctity of human life at all developmental stages and therefore reject research cloning as wholly unethical.

“Modern science has authoritatively concluded that a human embryo is a human being, immediately beginning at fertilization or cloning,” said Michael John Phillips, MD, past President of the Wisconsin Society of Pathologists. “At no other logical or scientifically sound point can we say that human life begins. ‘Therapeutic cloning’ is really just the opposite, because it involves nontherapeutic experiments on a defenseless human being – experiments that kill the human being solely for the benefit of others, much like the Nazi-era forced human medical experiments.”
Research cloning is falling out of favor due to the astronomical expense, evidence of tissue rejection, and problems with gene expression in the cloned animal and human embryos. It has been unsuccessful in curing disease in animals and has produced serious genetic abnormalities. In contrast, ethically unproblematic adult stem cells have helped hundreds of thousands of patients, and new clinical uses are discovered almost weekly. Adult stem cells have already been used to treat cancers, restore vision, and treat juvenile diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.

“The AMA has said its research cloning endorsement ‘makes a stance for science’,” said Peggy Hamill, State Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. “But what about making a stance for life? Apparently the AMA believes human life must be sacrificed on the altar of ‘scientific progress.’ What a disgrace to the medical community.”

Pro-Life Wisconsin is a founding member of the Coalition for Ethical Research, a consortium of organizations working to prevent the creation of human embryos though cloning in Wisconsin. The Coalition supports passage of Assembly Bill 104 and Senate Bill 45, co-authored by Representative Steve Kestell (R-Elkhart Lake) and Senator Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan), legislation that would place a comprehensive ban on human cloning.