How Goes the Fight Against Cloning in Nebraska?

Here's the text from the press release about Nebraska's LB 606 sent out this morning from the Nebraska Right to Life office:

NEBRASKA RIGHT TO LIFE SUPPORTS LB 606 AS A GOOD FAITH EFFORT ON UNETHICAL MEDICAL RESEARCH

LINCOLN---After weeks of negotiation, pro-life/pro-family groups can finally breathe a sigh of relief that their concerns regarding unethical medical research should be addressed this legislative session with LB 606, passed out of the Judiciary Committee today.

Several important points raised by Nebraska Right to Life if LB 606 becomes law:

1. "LB 606 is a good faith effort to address some of the concerns that we have raised for eight long years in a battle with the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) over unethical medical research." said Julie Schmit-Albin, NRL Executive Director. "If LB 606 passes it will ban the use of public funds and facilities from creating and destroying embryos. While there is no ban on private labs doing destructive embyronic research, we retain the ability to push for a legislative ban on that if it does happen in Nebraska."

2. "Harmful language in the original Section 3 of LB 606 was removed in the negotiation process, language which would have codified into State law that any embryos created through cloning must be killed." said Schmit-Albin. "We vigorously opposed this "clone and kill" language as it could have emboldened private sector cloning labs to come into Nebraska and we are thankful it was removed."

3."While bioethics is not an area that invites compromise, we acknowledge that we gain enough with LB 606 to merit supporting it." said Schmit-Albin. "Though it isn't everything we wanted in LB 700, this is one of those times where we can gain something or achieve nothing and we chose the former."

4. "Two senators deserve our commendation: Senator Mark Christensen of Imperial for introducing and pushing LB 700 and Senator Steve Lathrop of Omaha for the many hours he spent with the pro-life lobby to reach a resolution with LB 606."

(Denny's note: I'd like to add a couple of commendations of my own to Julie Schmit-Albin and the members of her team there at Nebraska Right to Life, Greg Schleppenbach of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, and Chip Maxwell of the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research. They all deserve our most enthusiastic applause for a difficult job well done.)

Also, here's Greg's response:

I write with good news about the effort to find a compromise on the cloning issue in our State Legislature. As I mentioned in a recent e-mail, Sen. Steve Lathrop and Sen. Brad Ashford have been working with both sides of the cloning debate to forge a compromise bill that both sides can accept. That bill, LB 606, was advanced by the Judiciary Committee today and will likely see floor debate in the next 2-3 weeks. Although this bill doesn't go as far as we'd like in prohibiting immoral research, Nebraska's pro-life and pro-family groups all support the bill because it is a significant and positive step for the State of Nebraska in establishing some important ethical boundaries for biomedical research.

The bill does the following:

Prohibits state facilities and funds from being used to destroy human embryos for the purpose of research. Human embryo is defined to include embryos produced by in vitro fertilization and cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer).

Prohibits state facilities and funds from being used to clone a human embryo for any purpose. Establishes a new scientific committee to award grants to Nebraska institutions or researchers for the purpose of conducting non-embryonic stem cell research.

This means that the state-funded University of Nebraska Medical Center would be prohibited by Nebraska law from doing number 1 and 2 above. The bill does not address cloning in the private sector but the Medical Center is currently the only institution capable of conducting cloning in Nebraska and it is unlikely that a privately funded lab would be initiated in our state.

An earlier version of LB 606 had a provision (the infamous "section 3") that would have criminalized so-called "reproductive" cloning (cloning embryos to implant for live birth) in the private sector but would have been silent on cloning embryos for the purpose of destroying them for research. This provision would have communicated that it is okay to clone human embryos with private money as long as you destroy them for research. The provision was removed at the request of the pro-life groups and thus cleared the way for our support of the bill.

Because both sides of the cloning debate have accepted LB 606, it is anticipated that the bill will receive little or no resistance by the full Legislature. I'll keep you posted as the bill moves forward.

Here's NCER's press release:

The Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research congratulates Nebraska State Sen. Steve Lathrop on brokering what some said was impossible -- a compromise on stem cell research that all parties could accept. He engaged both sides and held on to complete a wild ride of negotiation that produced something concrete and positive in research policy. The proposed limitation on what NCER calls "clone-and-kill" research is not comprehensive, but it blocks such research in the public sector. That possibility is what prompted the effort to ban cloning in the first place. We will be alert for efforts to pursue such research in the private sector, but for now we salute Sen. Lathrop and a significant achievement in research policy in Nebraska.

Also, Chip has written a great op/ed piece which I'll print here in full -- just in case the Omaha World-Herald, which most definitely has taken the side of the cloning interests, refuses to publish it.

Get Oslo on the line. We have a Nobel Prize nominee in Nebraska: State Sen. Steve Lathrop, successful negotiator of a compromise bill on cloning and stem cell research. Sen. Lathrop went where other senators dared not tread - down the middle between the two sides of the stem cell research debate.

The issue was cloning. One side (including the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research) wanted the complete ban on cloning in Nebraska proposed in LB 700. The other side was willing to consider a partial ban, but not LB 700.

I'm going to do something I hate doing - use the false distinction in cloning between "reproductive" and "therapeutic." There is one cloning procedure. It's called somatic cell nuclear transfer. It produces embryos. The reproductive/therapeutic distinction is made after cloning is accomplished and a new human embryo has been created. Pro-cloners say it's bad to let such embryos live (reproductive cloning), but it's good to destroy them to harvest their stem cells for research (therapeutic cloning).

Sen. Lathrop wanted something accomplished on cloning, but he did not think LB 700 would pass. Virtually all of society opposes reproductive cloning, Sen. Lathrop reasoned, but opinion is split on therapeutic cloning, and that split is reflected in the Legislature. Perhaps a partial ban on therapeutic cloning would be achievable.

Sen. Lathrop offered a compromise bill with a total ban on reproductive cloning, including a criminal penalty. The bill banned therapeutic cloning in the public sector, and there was no criminal penalty. That left open the possibility of therapeutic cloning in the private sector, but the obvious and immediate threat is in the public sector.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center has championed cloning and its importance to embryo-destructive research in legislative hearing testimony in 2005, at its own Mini Medical School Night in 2006, and in a 2007 World-Herald Midlands Voices column bragging about its role in the cloned monkey project in Oregon.

Internal protocols ban therapeutic cloning at UNMC, but those could be flipped. Meanwhile, pro-cloners are pushing for therapeutic cloning throughout the country. Missouri joined the therapeutic cloning club in 2006. Iowa lifted a statutory ban on therapeutic cloning last year. So our side was willing to take the half-a-loaf public-sector ban on therapeutic cloning, and will remain alert for activity in the private sector.

The sticking point was the ban on reproductive cloning. Pro-life groups wanted that provision removed because of the disparate treatment of reproductive cloning (total ban and criminal penalty) versus therapeutic cloning (partial ban and no penalty). That would put pro-life groups in the position of saying it is better to kill cloned humans then it is to let them live. They preferred a bill that was silent on reproductive cloning and was simply a public-sector ban on therapeutic cloning.

Sen. Lathrop removed the ban on reproductive cloning, a major concession on his part. To him it seemed counterintuitive to seemingly weaken the ban on cloning. But when it became clear that pro-life groups would be put in an untenable position by the mixed message on the value of cloned human life, Sen. Lathrop accommodated the pro-life groups.

UNMC gets safe passage to continue embryonic stem cell research subject to policies of the University of Nebraska and federal guidelines. The compromise bill also directs funding to UNMC and Creighton University for non-embryonic stem cell research.

State Sen. Brad Ashford, chairman of the legislative committee dealing with this issue, deserves credit for his behind-the-scenes efforts to keep the issue alive. State Sen. Mike Flood, speaker of the Legislature, monitored the situation from an appropriate distance, then applied his deal-making skills in crunch time to bring the compromise to fruition.

And let's not forget State Sen. Mark Christensen, introducer of LB 700. It might have been safer politically, and more satisfying personally, to push ahead with LB 700 even if defeat was virtually certain. Instead, Sen. Christensen handled a difficult situation gracefully and helped make compromise possible.

Speaker Flood called the compromise bill "a significant milestone" reflecting "the willingness of the participants to appreciate the interests and concerns of one another." Well said. Well done.