Congressman Michael C. Burgess (TX-26) today voted to approve landmark legislation that bans all forms of human cloning. The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003 makes performing or attempting to perform human cloning illegal. HR 534 passed the House by a vote of 241 to 155. Similar legislation passed the House of Representatives by a large bipartisan vote in the 107th Congress, but the Senate never considered it.

“As a former physician, I believe we should always seek to improve human life and we must always preserve human dignity. And therefore, it is a necessity to prohibit both human somatic nuclear transfer and research cloning. Anything short of a complete prohibition is unacceptable.”

HR 534 bans the creation of human cloned embryos for research and reproductive purposes. The legislation bans creating cloned human embryos by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) for any purposes and would only ban the creation of cloned human embryos. SCNT is also known as therapeutic cloning involves removing the nucleus of an unfertilized egg cell, replacing it with the material from the nucleus of a “somatic cell” (a skin, heart or nerve cell), and stimulating this cell to begin dividing. Experimental research cloning endangers women, because it would require the harvesting of millions of eggs, exposing them to exploitation and unnecessary risks for purely experimental purposes.

Burgess voted against a substitute to HR 534 offered by Congressman James Greenwood of Pennsylvania (HR 801). The substitute would not have been an outright moratorium, of somatic nuclear transfer cloning.

“We must prevent human cloning by stopping it before it starts. We cannot allow children to be born malformed, disabled, or stillborn since this type of procedure results in high failure rates. America is looking for our leadership on this very important issue,” commented Burgess in a statement on the House floor.