[00:03.81]1999 Passage4 [00:07.51]When a Scottish research team startled the world [00:10.54]by revealing 3 months ago [00:12.61]that it had cloned an adult sheep, [00:14.94]President Clinton moved swiftly. [00:17.86]Declaring that he was opposed [00:19.93]to using this unusual animal husbandry technique [00:23.34]to clone humans, [00:24.93]he ordered that federal funds [00:26.74]not be used for such an experiment [00:29.76]--although no one had proposed to do so [00:32.69]--and asked an independent panel [00:34.78]of experts chaired by Princeton President Harold Shapiro [00:39.31]to report back to the White House in 90 days [00:42.74]with recommendations for a national policy [00:45.43]on human cloning. [00:47.96]That group [00:49.26]--the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) [00:54.52]--has been working feverishly [00:56.18]to put its wisdom on paper, [00:58.50]and at a meeting on 17 May, [01:01.13]members agreed on a near-final draft [01:03.95]of their recommendations. [01:06.37]NBAC will ask that Clinton's 90-day ban on federal funds [01:11.91]for human cloning be extended indefinitely, [01:15.75]and possibly that it be made law. [01:18.67]But NBAC members [01:20.73]are planning to word the recommendation narrowly [01:23.95]to avoid new restrictions on research [01:26.68]that involves the cloning of human DNA or cells [01:30.61]--routine in molecular biology. [01:33.85]The panel has not yet reached agreement [01:36.27]on a crucial question, however, [01:38.44]whether to recommend legislation [01:40.56]that would make it a crime [01:41.88]for private funding to be used for human cloning. [01:45.61]In a draft preface to the recommendations, [01:48.74]discussed at the 17 May meeting, [01:51.61]Shapiro suggested that the panel [01:53.47]had found a broad consensus that it would be [01:56.90]"morally unacceptable to attempt to create [02:00.12]a human child by adult nuclear cloning." [02:03.65]Shapiro explained during the meeting [02:06.07]that the moral doubt stems mainly from fears [02:08.81]about the risk to the health of the child. [02:12.14]The panel then informally accepted several general conclusions, [02:16.47]although some details have not been settled. [02:20.00]NBAC plans to call for a continued ban [02:23.64]on federal government funding [02:25.51]for any attempt to clone [02:28.02]body cell nuclei to create a child. [02:31.66]Because current federal law already forbids [02:34.48]the use of federal funds to create embryos [02:37.71](the earliest stage of human offspring before birth) [02:42.03]for research or to knowingly endanger an embryo's life, [02:46.58]NBAC will remain silent on embryo research. [02:51.52]NBAC members also indicated [02:54.11]that they would appeal to privately funded researchers [02:57.03]and clinics not to try to clone humans [03:00.46]by body cell nuclear transfer. [03:03.08]But they were divided on whether to go further [03:05.70]by calling for a federal law that would impose [03:08.93]a complete ban on human cloning. [03:11.55]Shapiro and most members [03:13.17]favored an appeal for such legislation, [03:16.17]but in a phone interview, [03:17.79]he said this issue was still "up in the air."

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