Remarks by Speaker Sheldon Silver

Press Conference Announcing the
Reproductive Cloning Prohibition and Research Protection Act

Capitol, Speaker's Conference Room
Thursday, June 17, 2004

Today, 58 million Americans suffer with heart disease.

Four million are battling Alzheimer's - a disease which claimed the life of President Reagan.

One million children have juvenile diabetes, and a quarter of a million Americans are paralyzed due to spinal cord injuries.

According to the American Cancer Society, approximately one in three women in the United States will develop cancer in her lifetime.

All told, some 128 million Americans suffer from crippling, chronic, degenerative and acute diseases that in addition to the terrible pain they cause, cost this country billions of dollars in treatment expenses and lost productivity.

As medical science advances toward a cure for these diseases, it is becoming increasingly clear that the solution may be found in therapeutic cloning and stem cell research.

Today, the Assembly - represented by the numerous members of the Majority Conference standing with me intend to take action on Assembly 6249-A, The Reproductive Cloning Prohibition and Research Protection Act, which makes it unlawful for any person or entity to knowingly perform or attempt to perform reproductive cloning.

More important, our legislation authorizes scientific activities relating to:

• Therapeutic cloning;
• Stem cell research and the related applications of such research.
• As well as in vitro fertilization.

Our legislation also creates the "Legislative Commission on Human Cloning" to examine, evaluate and advise the Legislature on issues relating to human cloning, genetic engineering and stem cell research, so that the voice of science can be an integral part of biotech policymaking in the State of New York.

Speaking on our legislation today are:

The Chair of our Committee on Health, Assembly Member Richard Gottfried;

The Chair of the Legislative Task Force on People with Disabilities, Assembly Member Kevin Cahill;

As well as, Assembly Member Scott Stringer who has been a long time advocate of stem cell research.

Joining us today are:

Paul Richter, a retired New York State Trooper - who is representing the Spinal Cord Society;

Mike Discipio, who will be speaking on our bill, represents the Capital District Chapter of the Spinal Cord Society;

Ross Frommer, Deputy Vice President for Government and Community Affairs, representing New Yorkers for the Advancement of Medical Research;

Marilyn Castaldi, Chief Communications Officer for Columbia University Medical Center;

Renee Albert, who will be speaking on the bill, represents the National Board of Directors of Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America;

Herb Gordon, also speaking on the bill, is the National Volunteer Consultant for State Legislative Issues for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation;

And, representing Family Planning Advocates are:

Lois Uttley, Vice President of the Education Fund;

Carol Blowers, Director of Governmental Affairs;

And Susan Pedo, Director of Communications and Public Affairs.

As a Jew and as a legislator, I understand the conflict between religious law and secular law.

I have traveled to Washington and argued the case for the reasonable accommodation of religious principles.

I have met with religious leaders and debated "Choice," and the inclusion of infertility treatments and contraceptives in health insurance policies.

I have the utmost respect for religious freedom, but it is unreasonable to deny suffering and disabled New Yorkers the benefits of stem cell research, because reasonable people differ in their view of when life begins.

While I agree that we should not be cloning human beings, I have serious objections to a total ban on therapeutic cloning and somatic cell nuclear transfer.

It is - and has always been - my position, that it is ethically and morally correct to alleviate and to prevent suffering to the extent that we can.

To those who support a total ban on cloning, let me suggest that you visit a badly burned child at Albany Medical Center, then ask yourself whether an enucleated egg is more important than relieving the suffering of that child.

Visit the mother of a child who will die from spinal muscular atrophy before the age of two and ask yourself whether it is better to run the risk that one disreputable scientist will engage in reproductive cloning or to allow medical science the opportunity to save her child's life.

If you've followed the debate in Congress over stem cell research, you've encountered fearful references to embryo farms, the exploitation of poor women, and concerns that America will not be able to police biotech entities and doctors in order to prevent reproductive cloning.

I remember similar reactions back in the 1970s over DNA research and gene splicing.

That research lead to the creation of Insulin and a plethora of medicines, including one that prevents childhood deaths from cystic fibrosis.

Just a decade ago we were hotly debating in-vitro fertilization. The successes of that technology are growing up healthy all around us.

Look at what America has accomplished already: victories over tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, cholera and so many other diseases.

Today, Americans are surviving AIDS, and winning battles with some forms of cancer.

I'm not suggesting that the fears being expressed about stem cell research are always and completely without merit, but we cannot stymie human progress and hope with "what if" thinking.

I believe that history shows us that our interests are best served, the quality of our lives are most often enhanced, when doctors and researchers are able to do their work unfettered by the irrational fears and personal beliefs of those in government.

When it comes to stem cell research, let us follow doctors, not doctrines.

Equally important, we must not hold New York back on the most promising medical technology of our time.

And please, let's not make doctors and scientists criminals for striving to heal the physically challenged and the infirmed.

Let's not force them to go overseas to do their cutting-edge work.

Let's not give away an industry that generated nearly $30 billion in revenues in the United States in 2001, and that doubled employment in the last ten years.

We have already made significant investments in building biotech research corridors around the Roswell Park Cancer Center in Buffalo, SUNY Stony Brook on Long Island, and in the Lower Manhattan Bioscience Corridor.

Keep in mind that it was scientists at New York's Rockefeller Institute - back in the early 1940s, who discovered that DNA is the molecule that carries genetic information.

Let's not throw away New York's birthright of scientific discovery and medical excellence.

Our challenge is to break down the walls of ignorance and fear, so that we can reach that place of hope where so much suffering and frustration will become nothing more than historical footnotes in the annals of medicine.

We are proud to advance this legislation today, and we will work vigorously to gain passage of it in the State Senate, and to get the Governor to sign it into law as quickly as possible.