Nebraska has easily passed into law a ban on any state funding of human cloning research and banning any state facility from doing human SCNT. From the story:
The measure prohibits the use of state money or facilities for creating or destroying embryos for stem cell research using a technique commonly referred to as therapeutic cloning. At the same time, the new law allows research using existing lines of stem cells to continue. As part of the compromise brokered by Senator Steve Lathrop of Omaha, groups opposing the destruction or creation of embryos for research agreed not to push for further cloning legislation under three conditions:
– if there are no attempts at private-sector research involving cloning;
– if advancements in cloning do not raise new ethical dilemmas;
– and if there are no violations of the new law.
Of course, any existing stem cell lines would not be from cloned embryos since they have yet to be created successfully.
My sources told me that this was going to be a hard sell. The fact that it went through so easily, it seems to me, is an indication of the profound political changes in this field wrought by the IPSC breakthrough.
Congratulations to Nebraska. More of this kind of law, please.
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