United Nations Call For Prohibition Of Cloning

Scoop Report: The United Nations has asked all countries worldwide to forbid human cloning - but within the detail there is plenty of room for cloning scientists to move. On Tuesday the United Nations passed a declaration seeking to ban cloning of humans. A number of Member States explained they would not accept this recommendation.

With 84 votes for the move and 34 against, 37 countries abstained, 36 were absent.

The UN passed the declaration to forbid any form of human cloning. The United Nations declaration sought to ban cloning experiments, which scientists say may serve the treatment of diseases. But the UN said such experiments would not be compatible with human dignity and the protection of human life. The UN declaration was backed by a coalition of mainly Catholic countries.

However, the UN declaration is not obligatory. Several countries, among them Great Britain, France, China and Japan had originally voted against the declaration which had been brought in by Costa Rica.

The gathering missed the opportunity to forbid the reproductive cloning of humans, the British representative Emyr Jones Parry said. The reason therefore was the intransigence of countries, which cannot accept that other countries want to permit therapeutic cloning for certain purposes under severe control.

The non-obligatory declaration would not have any impact on the British position concerning this question.

In contrast to therapeutic cloning all member states dismiss reproductive cloning.

Experiments to produce a genetic copy of a human and raise it to birth were not justifiable because of the health risks for the clone. At therapeutic cloning the clone embryo grows only to an early development stage. Then its embryonic stem cells are extracted. The cells are then implanted into the genetic role model and substitute deceased cells. Clinicians say this is able to trear diseases like Parkinson's Disease or Multiple Sclerosis.

The clone embryo is destroyed when the cells are removed. That’s why this method is ethically controversial.

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