Kagan Files From Clinton Administration Show Her Backing Human Cloning

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Kagan Files From Clinton Administration Show Her Backing Human Cloning

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 10, 2010

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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Add human cloning to abortion and assisted suicide as practices pro-life groups oppose but Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan supports. Files released from the Clinton library about Kagan's time in the Clinton administration show her advocating cloning humans for dubious research.
Kagan served as a top domestic policy advisor for ex-President Bill Clinton from 1997-1999 and she played a key role in shaping and executing his response to new cloning technologies.
"Memoranda and emails released by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library on Friday document Kagan’s involvement in crafting an anti-life position and legislative proposal," says Americans United for Life, whose attorneys investigated them.

A May 29, 1997 memo from Kagan to Clinton and Jack Gibbons, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, had Kagan suggesting that Clinton support banning only the kind of human cloning that results in the birth of a live baby.
She urged "that [the President] support domestic legislation banning human cloning" but added Clinton should "support the gist of France's proposed cloning paragraph [in the G-8 Communiqué]."
That proposal would have had Clinton supporting a clone and kill policy whereby he would have advocated for the cloning of human beings for the sole purpose of killing them in research.
"As the memo explains, Kagan’s 'ban' on cloning only banned the use of cloning aimed at the live-birth of a baby, not at cloning that takes human life," AUL notes.
That support for a phony ban on human cloning with massive exceptions for killing cloned human beings for research purposes is backed up by a June 3, 1997 memo to Clinton from other staffers which was submitted along with Kagan’s memo.
It "clarified that the proposed ban should allow the cloning of human embryos for experimentation," AUL said and contained Clinton's standard checkmark indicating he supported it. The memo said Clinton supported the recommendation by “Jack/Elena . . . that you announce your support for NBAC-type[2] legislation and that you propose specific legislative language."
A followup memo on June 8, 1997 made Kagan's intent clear.
“NBAC's proposed legislation --and, as currently drafted, your bill --would not ban the creation of cloned embryos for research purposes," it said. "[T]he attached Kagan/Gibbons memo recommends that you follow NBAC in not banning the cloning of embryos for research.”
Kagan stated in a memo that she saw “no moral rationale for treating embryos created through cloning differently from embryos developed through other means (e.g. in vitro fertilization) when embryos are used solely for research.”

Americans United for Life responds, saying, "The cloning of human embryos creates living human beings in the earliest stage of development. 'Using them for research' means they will be 'disaggregated' and killed as part of the research. By endorsing such practices, Kagan demonstrated her disrespect for unborn human life."
Kagan’s involvement in cloning policy was not limited to writing memos, the pro-life legal group indicates.
"Over the course of several months, she was in frequent dialogue with other administration officials about the content of Clinton’s legislative language, which Congressional proposals they should support or oppose, and how much they could work with Senate Republicans. While most of the emails in the file are written to Kagan, it is clear that she led an administration cloning meeting in March 1998 and was asked to provide specific advice about the President’s legislation and Statements of Administration Policy," it explains.
Because of Kagan's nuanced position -- claiming to ban human cloning while simultaneously advocating it -- AUL says the Obama Supreme Court nominee is advocating "pseudo-science."
"While Kagan and the Clinton administration tried to create a distinction between cloning humans to be used in research and cloning humans for live-birth, there are not two distinct forms of human cloning. These are simply two rationales for the same scientific procedure [human cloning]," AUL says.
"While the life-affirming response to this would be to ban the destruction of all human embryos for research, they worry instead that halting such destruction might inhibit research," AUL continues. "In other words, they put pragmatism over ethics, willing to sacrifice human life in the pursuit of other goals."

"Kagan’s disregard for the value of human life at its most vulnerable stage creates concerns about how she will consider common sense abortion regulations and other cases that will come before the Court," AUL adds.
The pro-life group concludes: "First, it shows she is deeply hostile to protecting the unborn, even when abortion is not an issue. Second, when combined with other statements and writings that reveal her judicial philosophy and her views on the constitutionality of regulations that protect unborn life, her views raise concerns about whether she believes federal restrictions on funding for embryonic stem cell research or cloning, or bans on these procedures, at the state or national level, are constitutional."Related web sites:Americans United for Life - http://www.AUL.orgPetition Against Kagan - http://www.iopposekagan.comFacebook: Stop Kagan