Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2005

The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2005 (S. 658) sought to establish a comprehensive federal ban on the creation of human clones. The bill would have made it a crime to perform human cloning, participate in cloning attempts, or ship and receive embryos produced through cloning processes.

For the average citizen, this legislation meant that medical researchers and laboratories would be legally barred from using "somatic cell nuclear transfer" to create human embryos, even for the purpose of developing specialized medical treatments or stem cell therapies. While the bill included significant civil and criminal penalties for violations, it specifically protected other forms of scientific research, such as the cloning of DNA, molecules, plants, and non-human animals. Ultimately, the bill did not move past the committee stage and never became law.