PRESS RELEASE

National Right to Life Runs Radio Ad Countering Senator Hatch on the Cloning of Human Embryos

WASHINGTON - The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the nation’s largest pro-life organization, is sponsoring a new radio ad countering Senator Orrin Hatch’s recent endorsement of legislation to permit the cloning of human embryos for lethal medical experiments. The ads began running today in five Utah cities, including Salt Lake City (four stations) and Ogden.

The ad anticipates U.S. Senate action soon on a bill (S. 1899), sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), that would ban the cloning of human embryos. The bill has already passed the House of Representatives. The Senate will choose between the Brownback bill and competing legislation sponsored by Senators Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Hatch, and others, which is backed by the biotech industry. The Specter bill would permit corporations to clone unlimited numbers of human embryos, who would be used in experiments that would kill them.

In a speech on human cloning on April 10, President Bush urged approval of the Brownback bill, and expressed strong opposition to the approach embodied in the Specter-Hatch bill. He warned that human "embryo farms" will develop unless the Brownback bill is enacted. [The President’s speech is posted at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/print/20020410-4.html]

In the 60-second radio ad, a husband repeats several of Sen. Hatch’s arguments and his wife provides information which counters them. For example, the husband says,

"Hatch says we must do this to find cures," and the wife replies, "But President Bush, Senator Bennett, every Utah congressman support the Brownback bill. And, the only doctor in the Senate, Bill Frist! They all know that research can advance without allowing what President Bush called human embryo farms. If we start creating human lives just to harvest them like crops -- where will it end?"

A complete transcript of the new ad appears below. An mp3 audio file of the ad will be posted on the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org. That website also includes additional information on the Brownback bill and the competing "clone and kill" legislation cosponsored by Senator Hatch. For additional specific documentation on any of the statements made in the ad, contact the NRLC Federal Legislative Office at (202) 626-8820 or at Legfederal@aol.com.