BATON ROUGE -- With almost no debate, the Louisiana House overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to forbid the spending of state or federal government money on what is often called "therapeutic cloning" -- the creation of human embryonic cells to obtain stem cells for medical use.

Backers of the bill by Rep. Cameron Henry, R-New Orleans, say the practice of therapeutic human cloning -- which has not yet been accomplished -- would create new human life, only to have it destroyed for research when stem cells are removed. Opponents say the practice, which would involve removing the nucleus of an unfertilized egg and replacing it with nuclear material from the skin or other tissue of a donor, would not create a human life. It could, they say, lead to cures for a variety of ailments using stem cells, which can be made to grow into a variety of types of tissue.

Tuesday's 90-9 House vote came with strong support from conservative Christians and over objections raised last week by the Louisiana chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Diabetes is one of the diseases researchers would seek to cure by embryonic stem cell research. And Dr. Claude Bouchard, director of LSU's Pennington Biomedical Center, said in an interview Tuesday that passage of the bill would hurt his efforts to recruit and keep scientific researchers.

Backers of Henry's bill reject the arguments. Aside from the moral issues, they say that human cloning attempts and research using stem cells from human embryos have yet to provide a cure for anything. They say stem cells derived from "adult" sources -- fat cells or umbilical cord cells, for example-- has shown more promise and is a more economical use of taxpayer-funded research.

The bill goes next to the Senate after Tuesday evening's 90-9 vote in the House.

In theory, the embryo created by the fusion of an egg and a donor nucleus could be implanted in a woman's womb and would grow into baby that would be genetically identical to the nuclear donor -- a process called reproductive cloning.

While there is thorough opposition to that in the Legislature, lawmakers have been more divided over therapeutic cloning. The issue has been so contentious in the past that in 2006 lawmakers agreed to shelve it in what one termed a "cease-fire."

But Tuesday night's overwhelming vote indicates cloning opponents may have an easier time in the new Legislature.

An amendment added to the bill Tuesday night was designed to appease some supporters of embryonic stem cell research. While it doesn't address cloning to obtain embryonic stem cells, it OKs use of use of federal funds for research using embryonic stem cell lines approved for federal funding before August 9, 2001. President Bush approved use of those lines a few months after taking office but has blocked efforts to allow federal funding for research on embryos created after that date.

Bouchard said the amendment won't be enough to help Pennington, especially if a new administration in Washington eases up restrictions on future use of embryonic stem cells.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)