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Nebraska Family Council
1106 E Street, Lincoln, NE 68508-3511

Phone: 402-477-3191
Toll Free: 1-888-777-5188

Ban On All Human Cloning

Finally-A Ban on All Human Cloning

In January of 2007, Senator Mark Christensen introduced a Ban on All Human Cloning bill, LB 700. This bill came before Judiciary Committee for a public hearing in March of 2007. However, in 2008 the bill was killed by the Judiciary Committee. That is the bad news the good news is a compromise bill, LB 606, was passed by the full Legislature.

Sen. Steve Lathrop, who led the compromise between the pro-life community and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, stated this bill will:

  • Create a stem cell research cash fund that will provide matching funds up to $500,000 a year to be used for nonembryonic stem cell research.
  • Prohibit the use of state facilities and funds to create a human embryo and destroy it for research purposes.
  • Prohibit state facilities and state funds to be used for the creation of a human embryo by somatic cell nuclear transfer or human cloning.

    In 2004 there was a disappointing vote in regard to a Ban on All Human Cloning. The Nebraska Legislature in a motion to invoke cloture (stop a filibuster) failed to do so by one vote, with four key pro-life senators refusing to vote.

    Then Senator Adrian Smith of Gering introduced the bill to ban all Human Cloning, for reproductive and research purposes. Senator Arnie Stuthman of Columbus made LB 602 his priority bill, ensuring that it would come up for floor debate in the 2004 session.

    Senator Smith had 35 co-sponsors on LB 602; meaning 35 senators signed on to the bill in support. After over 6 hours of debate on this bill Senator Smith asked for a vote to break the filibuster. It takes 33 votes to invoke cloture, break a filibuster and stop debate so a vote can be taken on the bill itself. Sadly, the opposition was able to peel away four of Senator Smithˇ¦s co-sponsors on the bill. Thus we had only 32 Senators vote for cloture. If only one more Senator had voted for cloture we would have had the 33 votes needed to stop the filibuster and move the bill on.

    It is a sad day in our country when we need to debate the morality of bringing about conception for the sole purpose of doing reasearch on an unborn child and taking its life. It is even sadder that we have such a difficult time passing a law to restrict this type of research. Thus, we were excited to see LB 606 pass this year. This bill will ban all Human Cloning from being done with any public monies in Nebraska.