Policy

• U.S. Laws
• Table: State Cloning Laws (pdf file)
• International Legislation on Cloning and Germline Intervention (pdf file)
• Table: International Legislation on Cloning and Germline Intervention (pdf file)
• U.S. Proposed Laws
• International Legal Situation
• United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning
• Germany's Stem Cell Act (2002) (pdf file)
• Germany's Embryo Protection Act (pdf file)
• California Proposition 71

United States Laws

Ten states have laws concerning human cloning. Nine states prohibit cloning to bring about the birth of a child, and seven of those states also purport to ban research cloning. Two of the nine states ban cloning to bring about the birth of a child but allow research cloning. The tenth state, Missouri, prohibits the use of state funds to clone a human where the embryo survives through gestation and is born, but does not prohibit such cloning if conducted with private or federal funds.

Specifically, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota have effectively banned cloning to bring about the birth of a child and research cloning by prohibiting the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) “to produce a living organism, at any stage of the development.” Michigan has banned research cloning and cloning to bring about the birth of a child, at least where the cell/egg fusion successfully “produce[s] a human embryo.” By banning the use of SCNT “to create a human being,” Virginia purports to ban all cloning. But if a cloned embryo, whether or not it is implanted, gestated but just not born, is not considered a “human being,” then Virginia’s law would not actually ban research cloning.

Rhode Island, another state that purports to ban all types of cloning, bans the use of SCNT “for pregnancy.” But Rhode Island also explicitly protects research and practices that involve the use of SCNT or other cloning techniques to clone molecules, DNA, cells, and tissues; genetic therapies; animal cloning; and in vitro fertilization and fertility enhancing drugs, as long as they are not used in the context of human cloning. Rhode Island’s law, therefore, bans cloning to bring about the birth of a child only if the cloning is accomplished through SCNT, and not other cell transfer and cloning technologies.

California, the first state to enact cloning-related legislation, has a law that bars the use of SCNT “to initiate a pregnancy that could result in the birth of a human being.” California has thus banned cloning to bring about the birth of a child, but not research cloning, which aims to create a human embryo that will not be implanted. Louisiana had an identical law that expired on July 1, 2003. When enacting its law, California also created an advisory committee that met frequently over a five-year period, heard extensive testimony from scientists and members of the public, and issued a report on human cloning. A copy the advisory’s report issued in January 2002 is called “Cloning Californians?” and is available at http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/cloningreport (last visited June 16, 2004).

New Jersey’s law is unusual in that it bans the “replication of a human individual by cultivating a cell with genetic material through the egg, embryo, fetal and newborn stages into a new human individual.” (Emphasis added). Thus, New Jersey forbids cloning only where an embryo survives through gestation and is born, and thus does not prohibit research cloning. The New Jersey law is unique in this respect, and in its “definition” of cloning as, in effect, the birth of a clonal child.

Missouri’s law prohibits the use of state funds to replicate a human by cultivating a cell “through the egg, embryo, fetal and newborn stages of development.” But it does not prohibit the technique if it is privately or federally funded. California, Iowa, North Dakota, and Virginia also ban the purchase or sale of embryos and other human tissues involved in human cloning or the shipping, transferring, or receiving a cloned embryo.

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