Thanks to an amendment sponsored by pro-life Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), scientists and research universities would be prohibited from obtaining a patent on a human being.
The amendment says, “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this act may be used to issue patents on claims directed to or encompassing a human organism.”
Weldon, a doctor by profession, successfully added the amendment to the Commerce Justice State Appropriations bill (HR 2799). The amendment was passed July 22, 2003 by voice vote and is now a part of the bill.
John Cusey of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, said the amendment is a “big development because it is the first time the House of Representatives has taken the position that humans should not be patented.”
Paige Cunningham, chairman of the board of Americans United for Life, says the Patent Office granted a patent for animal cloning in 2001 to the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA).
Cunningham said the patent “was written so broadly that it appears to include human cloning and products of cloning in its protection.”
After receiving the patent, ICTA wrote that its scientists “now have rights over the product, i.e., any cloned human embryo or person born under the process.”
-LifeNews.com, July 22, 2003