Opposition to cloning is far and wide.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Gayle Atteberry For The Register-Guard

The Register-Guard's April 25 editorial `Hats off to Hatch' touts a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that would take America into what was once only described in movies about mad scientists. That which was vehemently condemned by both politicians and scientists just four years ago has now been enshrined in a newly introduced Senate bill endorsed by The Register-Guard.

In 2001, when President Bush announced that federal funds could not be used unilaterally for embryonic stem cell research, there was an outcry from some in the scientific community. `We only want to use the human embryos which are left over in the fertility clinics,' they said. Never, they said, would they want to clone human embryos.

Alas, these same scientists soon realized that there were not as many available embryos in fertility clinics as hoped, and that the supply would soon outpace the demand.

What does a scientist do when he cannot get enough human embryos from existing sources? Clone! Now some scientists `only want' to clone human embryos so that they can experiment with them (`therapeutic' cloning). When they are done with their research, they will kill them. Never, they say, would they implant embryos into a womb so that they would grow into a child.

In an attempt to make sure they do what they say, Hatch's bill would make it a crime to keep the human embryo alive past 14 days. Why a 14-day limit? Because after 14 days, the body axis and central nervous system begin to take form. By 21 days, the embryo's heart starts beating.

This bill makes it a crime to not kill a human embryo - this bill makes it illegal for a growing embryo to keep growing. The only difference between `therapeutic' cloning and `reproductive' cloning is what is done with the human embryo after you make it: either do research with it and kill it, or implant it in a mother's womb so that it can grow until birth.

The Register-Guard has placed opposition to human cloning solely on the backs of those who oppose abortion. However, opposition to human cloning transcends the pro-life community. In March of this year, the United Nations, hardly a bastion of conservatism, overwhelmingly passed the Cloning Declaration. In this declaration, the General Assembly called on member states to ban all human cloning. France and Canada have already done so.

In America, 74 percent of Americans oppose all human cloning. Included in that number are scientists, bioethicists, conservatives and liberals.

`There is too much hype about embryonic stems and at this point there is no data that cures are imminent,' says Dr. Micheline Mathews-Roth, a researcher at Harvard. Even liberal columnist Ellen Goodman, while not opposed to embryonic stem cell research, warns against exploiting women as researchers try to fulfill the need for thousands of women's eggs for use in the cloning process.

With California's recent passage of the $6 billion clone-and-kill ballot measure and New Jersey's legislation allotting money for cloning, the race is on. In an effort to `leave no scientist behind," Sen. Hatch has co-sponsored his bill so scientists everywhere can receive our tax dollars for their macabre research.

This madness must stop. A human life, no matter what size or age, is not a commodity to experiment with and then destroy. Adult stem cells (derived from bones, skin, fat, even fetal cord blood) are already saving lives and providing cures for scores of diseases. Embryonic stem cells have yet to produce one cure.

It is time that we tell those scientists afflicted with `mad scientist disease' that human life is not utilitarian. It is time Americans told those scientists that we `only want' human life to be treated with dignity and respect.

Gayle Atteberry of Eugene is executive director of Oregon Right to Life.