ARTICLE: U.N. to Consider Whether to Ban Cloning of Human Embryos

[Murray Charters <mcharters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

U.N. to Consider Whether to Ban Cloning of Human Embryos
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: November 3, 2003

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 2 ? Trace the lines of science, religion, ethics and 
politics and eventually they will intersect
at one of the most divisive issues currently at play here: human cloning.

"Among the nonpolitical issues, it's the most contentious," Michèle Montas, 
spokeswoman for the United Nations General
Assembly president, said recently. "They debate over and over again."

The member states of the United Nations will have another chance to express 
their feelings on the subject on Thursday
when they consider two competing resolutions that propose bans on human cloning 
? and seek to establish international
legal boundaries in the field of life sciences.

All the United Nations' member states agree that reproductive cloning, intended 
to produce a child with the same genes
as its genetic parent, should be prohibited. But beyond that, consensus falls 
apart. The field has begun to divide
sharply into two entrenched and unyielding camps.

One group, led by the United States and Costa Rica and including at least 61 
other countries, has sponsored a General
Assembly resolution calling for a convention that would ban all forms of human 
cloning ? that is, banning the creation
of a cloned embryo for any reason.

The second, led by Belgium and including at least 22 other countries, is 
pushing a counterresolution that would lead to
a convention banning the creation of cloned embryos to produce another human 
being but permitting the use of such
embryos for medical experiments.

In this process, known as therapeutic cloning and still in an experimental 
stage, scientists implant the nucleus of an
adult donor cell into a egg whose nucleus has been removed. The eggs develop 
into blastocysts ? four- to five-day-old
embryos ? from which scientists hope to develop tissues to treat human 
degenerative diseases.

Both resolutions would permit the unrestricted cloning of animals.

Though General Assembly conventions are nonbinding, they can be ratified by 
legislatures in signatory countries and, if
passed with large majorities, can send a powerful message.

The cloning moderates ? who, in addition to Belgium, include major powers like 
Britain, China and Japan ? argue that in
light of the widespread support for a ban on human reproductive cloning, the 
General Assembly should at least try to
secure a universal convention on that and leave it to the individual countries 
to pass even stronger legislation.

"It's easier to hold the extreme full-ban position from a purely moral position 
but not in terms of legislation and
implementation," said a diplomat from the camp proposing a moderate ban. The 
advocates of the full ban, the diplomat
contended, "are just trying to make their point. They're not prepared to be 
rational."

Several of the moderate resolution's co-sponsors have already passed some form 
of a ban on human cloning. About 30
nations, though not the United States, have adopted national legislation or 
guidelines that either explicitly or
implicitly prohibit reproductive cloning, according to Unesco.

Supporters of the moderate ban say that a total ban would preclude further 
embryonic stem cell research. An
international coalition of at least 66 science organizations, including the 
United States National Academy of Sciences,
has endorsed a ban on human reproductive cloning but has urged the United 
Nations and national legislatures to permit
therapeutic cloning.

Therapeutic cloning "has considerable potential from a scientific perspective," 
the coalition said in a statement.

But co-sponsors of the total ban ? which include many developing nations ? say 
cloning is unethical and immoral, in
part because it entails the destruction of the blastocyst.

The United States, in a position paper issued in August, said therapeutic 
cloning "would turn nascent human life into a
natural resource to be mined and exploited, eroding the sense of worth and 
dignity of the individual." It called the
destruction of cloned human embryos "a morally abhorrent prospect."

SOURCE: The New York Times


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