Ohio Pro-Life Advocates Want Human Cloning Funding Ban in Biotech Bill

Bioethics   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 23, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Ohio Pro-Life Advocates Want Human Cloning Funding Ban in Biotech Bill

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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 23
, 2008

Columbus, OH (LifeNews.com) — Ohio pro-life advocates are hoping to get a provision to prohibit any taxpayer-funding for human cloning into a biotech bill. With a bill to ban both forms of human cloning held up in committee, this is a way to limit the practice to make sure state residents don’t have their tax dollars used.

Ohio Right to Life tells LifeNews.com is urging state senators, including Senate President Bill Harris and Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Carey to amend H.B. 554 to ban tax-funded human cloning.

HB 554 is an economic stimulus bill that would fund grants, loans and loan guarantees for biotech research and medical products from it.

Ohio Right to Life says the bill is on a fast track in the Ohio General Assembly as it was introduced on May 12, passed the Ohio House on May 21, and is expected get a vote in the full Ohio Senate on May 28 or 29.

"By their vigorous opposition to S.B. 174, a bill which would ban human cloning, the members of Ohio’s biotech industry have demonstrated their total disregard for the most basic principle of ethical medical research — do no harm," ORTL president Tracie Johnson told LifeNews.com.

"Despite the availability of ethical alternatives, such as induced pluripotent stem cells, they are intent on creating human life through cloning for the sole purpose of destroying it in research," she added.

Johnson said her group is concerned that HB 554 would become an "open invitation: to use tax dollars to fund the creation and destruction of human life.

‘While Ohio’s biotech industry obviously views ethical restrictions on their research as an unnecessary inconvenience, millions of Ohio taxpayers do not share their cavalier disregard for human life," she added. "Those taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the creation and destruction of human life through cloning."

ACTION: Contact your state senator and urge support for an amendment to stop taxpayer funding of human cloning. If you don’t know who your Senator is or his or her contact information, you can find out by going to https://www.senate.state.oh.us/senators/SenateZipSearch.html

Related web sites:
Ohio Legislature – https://www.legislature.state.oh.us
Ohio Senate – https://www.senate.state.oh.us
Ohio Right to Life – https://www.ohiolife.org