Baton Rouge, LA (LifeNews.com) -- A Louisiana Senate committee has voted against a measure that would ban all forms of human cloning in the state -- for both research and reproductive purposes. The full state Senate could vote to pull the measure from the panel, however.

Senator Sharon Broome of Baton Rouge told the Associated Press she wasn't going to speculate on the next strategy associated with her bill after the Senate Judiciary B Committee voted it down.

Pro-life advocates were disappointed the Senate committee didn't listen to state residents who favored the bill.

"Hundreds of Louisiana citizens have sent messages to their Senators asking them to" support it, Dorinda Bordlee, executive director of the Bioethics Defense Fund stated. "Issues involving life and death should not be buried alive in killer committees."

Bordlee is hopeful that the Senate will give a fair hearing to what she calls "the most important human rights issue of our day -- whether our policy will allow the creation of human lives for the purpose of their destruction for science experiments that adult stem cell research renders unnecessary."

Bordlee also complained that Senate President Donald Hines, a Democrat, buried the bill, HB 492, in a committee he controls. Hines has authored legislation that would allow some forms of human cloning.

Hines used his power to move the bill to the Judiciary B committee from the Judiciary A panel that has held hearings on the legislation for the last two years.

The human cloning ban previously passed the floor of the state House by a vote of 75-23.

Related web sites:
Bioethics Defense Fund - http://www.bdfund.org