Press Room

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

Pro-Life Wisconsin Rejects Sherman Clone and Kill Bill;
Urges State Legislature to do the Same

Pro-Life Wisconsin strongly opposes a bill currently being circulated by Representative Gary Sherman (D-Port Wing) that claims to ban human cloning but would actually permit human cloning for experimental purposes and mandate that the cloned human embryos be destroyed.

“The only thing Representative Sherman’s bill would ban is the life of a person created by cloning,” said Peggy Hamill, State Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin.

The Sherman bill bans “reproductive cloning” – where a cloned person is brought to birth – but allows “therapeutic cloning” – where a cloned person is killed in the name of scientific progress. “The distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning is illusory,” said Hamill. “Both involve the reproduction of a fully human life. Cloning is cloning whether the intent is to clone to kill or clone to bring to birth.”

Pro-Life Wisconsin strongly supports a comprehensive human cloning ban in the form of Assembly Bill 104 and Senate Bill 45, legislation authored by Representative Steve Kestell (R-Elkhart Lake) and Senator Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan) that would truly ban all human cloning in Wisconsin. “While we applaud passage of a comprehensive federal cloning ban in the U.S. House, we are urging Wisconsin to move forward with the Kestell/Leibham bill and not wait for the U.S. Senate and President to act,” said Matt Sande, Legislative Affairs Director for Pro-Life Wisconsin. “The federal cloning ban is likely to face a prolonged filibuster in the Senate, and its coverage is not as broad as the state bill.”

According to Sande, a federal ban can operate constitutionally only through the “commerce clause,” therefore only public and private cloning activities “in or affecting interstate commerce” would be prohibited. “Certainly, there are potential cloning activities in Wisconsin that would extend beyond the reach of a federal law,” said Sande.

“Legislators who truly want to stop the inhumanity of human cloning should not give Sherman’s bill a second glance,” said Hamill. “The bill is a sham. Pro-Life Wisconsin remains committed to ensuring the passage of AB 104 and SB 45, legislation that would truly ban human cloning in Wisconsin.”