UN APPROVES DECLARATION BANNING ALL HUMAN CLONING

PRESS RELEASE FROM UN PRO-LIFE AND PRO-FAMILY COALITION OF NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
The UN General Assembly adopted a Declaration today calling on nations to enact legislation to `'prohibit all forms of human cloning." By a vote of 84 to 34, the Declaration received more support in the General Assembly than when it passed in the 6th Committee two weeks ago. The measure sets an international standard that humans should not be created through cloning for any purpose, placing human life as a priority over scientific experimentation.

The decision ends over three years of deadlock caused by countries seeking approval for cloning research. Belgium, the United Kingdom, Singapore and other countries that hope to profit from cloning humans opposed a total ban, and declared they would defy the international moral agreement.

The topic was originally introduced at the UN by pro-cloning countries to gain implicit international approval for so-called "therapeutic cloning" (creating human clones to experiment upon and kill). In 2002, these countries requested that a treaty be drafted to ban only so-called "reproductive cloning." The countries insisted that human clones are for research only and should not be allowed to survive.

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