Ken Calvert Quotes
The bill would ban human cloning, and any attempts at human cloning, for both reproductive purposes and medical research. Also forbidden is the importing of cloned embryos or products made from them.
Calvert, Ken. "Sanctity of Life." Congressman Ken Calvert, United States House of Representatives.
Freedman was the producer and narrator of a TV series on sophisticated topics of science. There are a number of jurisdictions in the world where it is not a crime to clone a human being. Once someone implants a clone into a human female, there is little society can do little to “prevent” the clone from being born. Many religious fundamentalists who oppose human cloning will fight to protect the life of the clone baby in utero. For all we know, clones have already been born and are attending school with other children as no one could easily tell that a child (or an adult) is a clone.
He prefaced his remarks by stating that he was speaking for himself and not the Commission.
This is a classic example of a legislator, concerned about the ethics and morality of certain types of scientific experiments, and not understanding the scientific meaning of the terms used, would also make illegal existing and important technologies and cures. In this case, he thinks of cloning as reproducing another exact human being, but we clone human cells every day to produce many of the beneficial medicines we use commonly. And the combination of animals and humans is common in many aspects of modern medicine. For burns the tissue of pigs is used to cover the wound and act as a scaffold on which human skin cells grow. There are millions of people in America and the rest of the world who are leading a normal life with a pig or a cow heart valve. There are ethical problems to be sure but most legislators have little clue as to what they are, and tend to want to outlaw whole areas of science out of their ignorance in in reaction to public pressure from others who do not understand what it is that they want to prohibit.
Kenneth Stanton Calvert is the U.S. Representative for California's 42nd congressional district, and previously the 44th and 43rd, serving since 1993. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district is part of the Inland Empire of Southern California.
