Washington

With the US federal government deadlocked on legislation to ban or restrict the cloning of human embryos, several state governments are moving to pass their own laws on the issue.

If it continues, the flow of state legislation could result in a patchwork of rules across the United States, with 'therapeutic' cloning permitted in the more liberal coastal states, but banned in the conservative heartland.

The stalemate on the issue in Washington was neatly captured on 18 January, when two important protagonists in the debate presented strongly conflicting visions of appropriate rules for cloning.

On that day, a National Academy of Sciences panel, chaired by developmental biologist Irv Weissman of Stanford University, released the findings of an eight-month study. The panel recommended a legislative ban on reproductive cloning but urged the government to allow research on cloned human embryos.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away in the Loews L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, the President's Council on Bioethics held its first meeting — and heard several of its members energetically denounce the use of cloning for research purposes. Indeed, the council's chair, Leon Kass, a bioethicist from the University of Chicago, declined to use the term 'therapeutic cloning', after council members objected to it.

“I do not believe there is a distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning. I think the distinction itself is morally problematic,” said council member Robert George, director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

The president's 18-member council consists of 15 academics — including 3 scientists — a journalist and 2 clinicians. The scientists urged the others to consider the potential therapeutic benefits of research cloning. “The question of how important this research may be to medicine is totally unresolved, which is a reason why we must be cautious about not preventing American scientists from pursuing these questions,” said Janet Rowley, a biologist at the University of Chicago.

Kass himself noted that in the past he has argued that the only way to enforce a ban on reproductive cloning would be to ban research cloning as well. He warned, however, that this did not necessarily mean that the panel would oppose the practice. “There is a division in this room about the feasibility and morality of doing research cloning, and where people will come out on that I don't know,” he said.

Some observers emphasized the Bush council's strong conservative leanings. “This panel is heavily theological and religious and is also made up of many people whose first impulse about science and technology is sceptical,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

In any case, it remains unclear what role the panel will have in influencing federal cloning legislation. The House of Representatives has already supported a law that would ban cloning altogether, whereas the Senate is likely to favour a narrower ban that would allow therapeutic cloning.

With neither body inclined to budge, observers say that Bush may have little to gain from taking a strong position on the issue, whatever his bioethics council recommends. Bush has already expressed a desire to see all types of cloning outlawed, and his council may well adopt the same position. But this does not necessarily mean that he will take the politically risky path of trying to force the Senate's hand.

As the federal government considers its position on the issue, science marches on. In November, the Massachusetts biotechnology firm Advanced Cell Technology claimed that it had cloned human embryos, prompting many states to draft their own cloning laws.

Last week, for example, an advisory council weighed in on California's ban on reproductive cloning, which is set to expire at the end of this year. The advisory council, chaired by Hank Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University, recommended that California renew the ban, but also said that the state should continue to allow therapeutic cloning. The state legislature will soon be considering whether to make all cloning illegal or simply to outlaw reproductive cloning and leave research cloning untouched.

Across the country in Wisconsin, the state in which James Thomson first isolated human embryonic stem cells, legislators are evaluating several proposals to restrict cloning. State houses in Massachusetts, Kentucky and Colorado are also debating their own laws.

But a Florida proposal is perhaps the most prophetic. The bill bans cloning for any purpose, and adds a uniquely American twist by allowing a cloned human to sue the scientists involved in his or her creation.