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LETTER

Post Date: January 1, 2001

An Open Letter to President George W. Bush on Human Cloning

by William Kristol, John F. Kilner, et al.

January 1, 2002

President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

In late November, a Massachusetts company announced it had created the first human clone. Your reaction to this assault on human dignity was clear and forceful. You condemned the cloning of embryos as "wrong" and you warned "we should not as a society grow life in order to destroy it." You called on the U.S. Senate to join you in supporting a comprehensive and effective ban on human cloning, a ban that was passed by an overwhelming and bipartisan vote of the House of Representatives on July 31, 2001.

We agree with you that passage of this legislation by the Senate is of the utmost importance and urgency. As you said in July, "the moral issues posed by human cloning are profound and have implications for today and for future generations." The implications are now upon us. We must act now so that science advances in a way that "honors and respects life."

Mr. President, we commend you for the moral leadership you have shown. We know that enactment of a comprehensive ban on all human cloning will be a top domestic priority for your administration in the coming months, and we pledge our support in helping you achieve this goal.

Sincerely,
 

William Kristol
Chairman, The Bioethics Project
 

Gary Bauer
President, American Values

J. Bottum
Books and Arts Editor
The Weekly Standard

Nigel Cameron
Dean, The Wilberforce Forum
 

Charles W. Colson
Founder, Prison Fellowship Ministries
Chairman, The Wilberforce Forum

Ken Connor
President, Family Research Council

Steve Forbes
 

Francis Fukuyama
Bernard Schwartz Professor of
International Political Economy
Johns Hopkins University

John Kilner, PhD
 The Center for Bioethics
& Human Dignity

C. Ben Mitchell
Editor, Ethics and Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics

Richard John Neuhaus
Institute for Religion and Public Life
 

David Prentice, MD
Founding Member, Do No Harm

Austin Ruse
President, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute

David Stevens, MD
Executive Director
Christian Medical Association

Paul Weyrich
President, Free Congress Foundation

Hadley Arkes
Ney Professor of American Institutions
Amherst College

William J. Bennett
Co-Director, Empower America

Gerard V. Bradley
Professor of Law
University of Notre Dame

Samuel B. Casey
Executive Director and CEO
Christian Legal Society

Roberta Combs
President
Christian Coalition of America

James Dobson, PhD
President, Focus on the Family

Hillel Fradkin
President, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence
Princeton University
 

Richard D. Land, D.Phil
President and CEO, Southern Baptist
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission

William J. Murray
Chairman, Religious Freedom Coalition
 

David O'Steen, Ph.D.
Executive Director
National Right to Life Committee

Sandy Rios
President, Concerned Women of America

Wesley J. Smith
Author

George Weigel
Ethics and Public Policy Center
 

John F. Kilner, PhD, a signatory of this letter, is Senior Scholar of The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity and Franklin Forman Chair of Ethics at Trinity International University.

The contents of this letter do not necessarily reflect the opinions of CBHD, its staff, board or supporters. Permission to reprint granted as long as The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity and the web address for this article is referenced.