Re: stem cell speech

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Aug 11 2001 - 23:03:05 MDT


Charles & Matt posted some questions regarding Bush's
authority to regulate research funding & anti-cloning
legislation.

I'll state my impressions from my following the discussions
in Science and some reading of the legislation.

a) Someplace wrapped up in the legislation funding the
   National Institute of Health (or perhaps the executive
   branch powers) is some right of the President to regulate
   whether or not NIH gets to allocate funds to certain
   research activities (esp. research involving the use
   of embryos).

This is intertwined in the conservative agenda to not
use federal funds for abortions or any other government
activity that would involve taking a "potential" life,
so when the Republicans have enough power in Congress they
enact legislation allowing the imposition of such restrictions
in the hopes that when they happen to have the White House
the restrictions will be tightened. You would have to
investigate the ammendments that get tacked onto the
appropriations bills in detail to follow the history of
this I think.

b) The anti-cloning push also comes out of the conservative
   agenda, and Bush has stated that he supports this. However,
   it only recently got linked to stem cell research due to
   efforts of the Republicans in the House. I've got
   links to the legislation in this Nanodot article:

http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/01/1333227&mode=thread
particularly in:
http://nanodot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/08/01/1333227&pid=0#3

Nanodot had a good reference here:
 http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=01/04/17/1432244&mode=thread
to an article here:
 http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopelprint041601.html
which pointed out that there were significant questions as to whether
the Congress or the President had any authority to regulate reproductive
activities (and yes, it was tied into the rights to regulate
Interstate Commerce).

Given how the courts seem to be leaning with the copyright and
DMCA legislation, there seems to be a slant against
"individual" rights. So the likelyhood of significant
actions against clinics/scientists pursuing reproductive
cloning (and support potentially through several levels
of the judicial hierarchy) seems high.

Reason Magazine has a good set of links related to the
Cloning debates here:
  "Should Cloning Be Banned"
  http://www.reason.com/biclone.html
Another interesting article is from U.S. News 7/9/01:
  The God game no more
  http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010709/usnews/clone.htm

Robert

Other References:
- TESTIMONY OF ISLAT DIRECTOR LORI B. ANDREWS, J.D.
  TO FRENCH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY NOVEMBER 26, 1999
  http://www.kentlaw.edu/islat/french_testimony.htm
- J. A. Robertson, TWO MODELS OF HUMAN CLONING
  Hofstra Univ. School of Law
  http://www.hofstra.edu/Academics/Law/law_lawrev_robert.cfm
- S. F. Appleton, Assisted Suicide and Reproductive Freedom:
  Exploring Some Connections, Wash. Univ. Law Quarterly 76(1):15 (1998)
  http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/WULQ/76-1/761-03.html
- K. Baum, "Golden Eggs: Towards the Rational Regulation
  of Oocyte Donation", Bringham Young Law Review (?) 2/22/01
  http://www.law2.byu.edu/lawreview/archives/2001/2bau.pdf
- New Republic article advocates a ban on human cloning
  http://www.tnr.com/052101/kass052101.html
  Discussion:
  http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=01/05/22/193221&mode=thread
  Includes some comments by moi.



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