Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - At a previously scheduled hearing, members of Congress Wednesday debated the president's State of the Union address call for Congress to ban human cloning.

"[B]ecause no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment," said President George W. Bush Tuesday night, "I ask you to set a high standard for humanity, and pass a law against all human cloning."

But Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said Wednesday that opponents of embryonic stem cell research have misused the word "cloning" in their opposition to the procedure.

"I am totally opposed to human cloning. The word 'cloning' has been used with 'reproductive cloning,' which is a misnomer," Specter said. "It is really nuclear transplantation."

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he also opposes the use of "somatic cell nuclear transplantation" to create a cloned human baby.

"If, on the other hand, nuclear transplantation can lead to another source of stem cells, I think we should take advantage of this technology," Hatch argued, "as long as we develop adequate ethical standards."

'All Human Cloning is Reproductive Cloning'

But Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) - who chaired Wednesday's meeting of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space - believes it is his colleagues who are mincing words.

"Some want to begin cloning humans," Brownback alleged, "they just don't want to call it that.

"Some who support human cloning would have society believe there are two different types of cloning: so-called 'reproductive cloning' and so-called 'therapeutic cloning,'" he continued. "All cloning is reproductive by nature. By that, I mean all cloning produces another human life."

Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), a practicing medical doctor, confirmed Brownback's assertion.

"All human cloning begins with the production of a cloned embryo," Weldon explained.

"Reproductive cloning involves implanting a cloned embryo into a woman's uterus," he continued. "Cloning research, 'therapeutic' cloning, somatic cell nuclear transfer, nuclear transfer, or whatever you choose to call it, involves taking that same embryo and destroying it to take its cells."

Weldon noted that those who support so-called "therapeutic cloning" have not proven the safety or effectiveness of the procedure.

"We do not allow drug companies to go out there and start experimenting on human subjects with their drugs until they have first demonstrated success in animal models," he observed. "Why some would want to skip this process and go directly to human cloning is beyond me."

Weldon introduced more than 80 peer-reviewed medical journal articles from 2002 and 2003 documenting the use of adult stem cell research in the treatment of diseases and disorders, including the case of a 59-year-old man whose Parkinson's disease was cured as a result of the medical advances.

To date, there has been no documented success in treating or curing disease using any findings from embryonic stem cell research. Weldon also introduced records of the few animal trials of embryonic stem cell research that have been conducted, some of which resulted in serious deformities and deaths of the animal subjects.

'The Potential for Evil is ... Unimaginable'

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) believes "whoever wins the battle of the definitions will probably win" the debate.

"It is very important that we establish that cloning is cloning," he argued. "Dolly [the sheep] was a clone, [the result of] a somatic cell nuclear transfer. That's how Dolly was created and everybody would recognize that as cloning."

Ensign said the final decision of Congress must include a careful analysis of "how we view ourselves as human beings."

"When we're starting to mess with the genetic make-up of people," he concluded, "the potential for evil is so great it is almost unimaginable."

Weldon and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) have introduced legislation in the House to outlaw all forms of human somatic cell nuclear transfer research. Brownback and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) have introduced a similar bill in the Senate.