Mr. Speaker, the member is talking about therapeutic cloning. Indeed the bill would ban that and we certainly support that ban.
We are talking about actually taking cells from one's own blood, bone marrow or skin from one's own body, simply extracting a hair follicle. It has been found that there are skin cells available that can be grown in vitro in larger numbers and injected back into the body.
We heard testimony from Dr. Prentice of Indiana State University that stem cells are being extracted from blood. The bone marrow is chemically stimulated to release stem cells which can be extracted with a simple blood sample, grown in a Petri dish and injected back into the same body. These cells actually would find their way to the damaged tissue and begin to identify with the cell type that is involved in the repair response. There is tremendous promise available in this area.
I agree with the member that we are not interested in going to therapeutic cloning.