CLINTON BANS FED FUNDS FOR CLONING

March 5, 1997

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. President Bill Clinton banned Tuesday federally funded human cloning research and asked private scientists voluntarily to enforce a similar moratorium until government advisers have reported on the troublesome issue.

The ban is broader than the prohibition on U.S.-funded human embryo research in effect since 1994, and Clinton said his intent was to close any loopholes pending the review of cloning he has requested from his National Bioethics Advisory Commission.

"Any discovery that touches upon human creation is not simply a matter of scientific inquiry," the president said in a brief Oval Office ceremony. "It is a matter of morality and spirituality as well."

"My own view is that human cloning would have to raise deep concerns, given our most cherished concepts of faith and humanity. Each human life is unique, born of a miracle that reaches beyond laboratory science," Clinton said as he issued the executive directive.

"I believe we must respect this profound gift and resist the temptation to replicate ourselves. At the very least, however, we should all agree that we need a better understanding of the scope and implications of this most recent breakthrough," he said.

The specter of making carbon copies of human beings crossed from the realm of science fiction to reality last week when a Scottish scientist reported he had cloned an adult sheep.

Scientists, many of who project human cloning will someday be possible, say they are not worried that there will be a stampede to try and clone people. But they acknowledge the possibility of a renegade scientist daring such an attempt.

Clinton noted that cloning technology, applied to animals or human cells and proteins, could reap tremendous benefits for science, agriculture and medicine.

But the president also gave a word of caution. "Like the splitting of the atom, this is a discovery that carries burdens as well as benefits," he said in a brief appearance in the Oval Office.