COMMENTARY

Daschle's Stalls Makes Senator No a Senator No-No

Paul M. Weyrich
Free Congress Foundation

Along comes a company called Advanced Cell Technology. If you had to pick a location for a biotech firm which would move into the political vacuum created by the Senate's inactivity where do you suppose it would be? Why Massachusetts, of course. Yesterday The Advanced Cell Technology Corporation finally revealed that they had done what they label "cellular cloning". The company claims their cloning procedure is simply to advance medical science and differs from human cloning, in which an entire person is reproduced.

 
Asked about this development on Sunday's Meet the Press with Tim Russert, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) danced all around the issue before finally admitting that he was in favor of cloning research but against the cloning of human beings. In the House, an amendment to the bill which eventually passed would have made that exact distinction and it was narrowly defeated.

Daschle calls himself a Catholic. On Monday, the Vatican denounced the work of the Advanced Cell Technology in no uncertain terms. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Al), on the other hand, indicated he would support the House bill as currently constituted.  Shelby wants to see action on the House bill immediately. Daschle said it would be a mistake to legislate now when emotions are running high on the subject. What hypocrisy!  When it suits his purpose, such as the recent so-called Airport Security legislation, Daschle is perfectly willing to legislate when emotions are running high.

This is a very scary slippery slope.  Douglas Johnson, Legislative Director for the National Right to Life Committee in Washington has it exactly right. "This corporation", said Johnson, "is creating human embryos for the sole purpose of killing them and harvesting their cells. Unless Congress acts quickly this corporation and others will be opening human embryo farms."

Johnson went on to say that "each of us began our individual life as an embryo. We were human when we were embryos and these cloned embryos are human life." Johnson wants all human life, including human life begun by cloning, to be protected and not to be killed to provide biological materials.

If you can believe this, the CEO of The Advanced Cell Technology Corporation told Matt Lauer of NBC's Today show that he considers himself to be pro-life and he sees nothing inconsistent with what he is doing and supporting the pro-life cause.  Blind arrogance we used to call it in moral theology class.

Senator Daschle is blocking the stimulus bill. Senator Daschle is blocking the energy bill. Now it appears that Senator Daschle will be blocking the cloning bill as well.  Most likely the House-passed version of the legislation would pass if voted on now. But if delayed for months, attitudes might change. And then perhaps emotions will subside and Daschle can just get by with doing nothing. But that willingness to take their own sweet time is clearly frustrating to the House leadership. Majority Leader Richard Armey has made clear his belief in regard to the Senate's inaction on human cloning that "We are in a race to prevent amoral, scientifically suspect tinkering with the miracle and sanctity of life. It's time for the Senate to put the deal-making aside and join the House in banning human cloning -- before it's too late."

Columnist and TV commentator Robert Novak makes the surprising comparison between Daschle and his stalling with that of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), who had been dubbed "Senator No" by the media. Helms is leaving now. So Novak thinks, given his record, that Senator Daschle ought to now be given the title "Senator No." But there is one crucial difference between the two. The problem is that Jesse Helms was stopping very bad legislation. Majority Leader Daschle is stopping, by and large, very good legislation. Me thinks we need a different moniker for the distinguished Majority Leader from South Dakota.