The Wisconsin State Senate passed a bill banning all forms of human cloning Wednesday.

The legislation, AB 499, was passed in the state Assembly earlier in the year and prohibits reproductive and therapeutic cloning. The bill was met with controversy in the Senate chambers; many Republicans argued the state was morally obligated to prohibit the technology, while Democrats said the ban would stifle research at the University of Wisconsin, hurting the economy and blocking the potential to find cures for diseases.

Though the Senate was supposed to vote on the bill Tuesday, legislators decided to hold the vote one day later. The bill passed by a vote of 21-12.

State Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, tried to enter an amendment that would allow therapeutic cloning, but the attempt was shot down.

"Cloning of a human being for any purpose is wrong, and we have the ability and responsibility to do something about it," State Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, said. "There is nothing about this bill that would stop research at the UW."

In 2001, federal restrictions were placed on the funding of embryonic stem-cell research, prohibiting further stem-cell extraction from embryos. Scientists who already had stem-cell lines before the ban were allowed to keep the cell lines.

UW professor of medicine Timothy Kamp, who works with one of these original lines, said this legislation would affect medical research at the university.

"To ban therapeutic cloning in the state would close a lot of doors to using stem-cell research," Kamp said. "This would handicap future research."

Ethnie Groves, a spokesperson for Gov. Jim Doyle, said the governor does not agree with legislation that would ban therapeutic cloning and will veto a bill that seeks to do so.

"The governor is strongly against human cloning, which is already clearly illegal in Wisconsin," Groves said. "But he is concerned that this bill, AB 499, is a backdoor attempt to restrict stem-cell research in the state, which holds enormous potential."

State Sen. Jeffrey Plale, D-Milwaukee, said though the "keys to unlocking cures" for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's may not be found through the use of therapeutic cloning, and researchers should not be denied the chance to try to find these cures.

"It would be hard as hell for me to go back to a cancer patient in my district and say, 'There could be science out there that will help you, but we won't allow it,'" Plale said.