UN backs U.S. plea for total ban on human cloning

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A divided U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday approved a nonbinding statement urging governments to adopt laws banning all forms of human cloning, including the cloning of human embryos for stem cell research.

In a victory for the George W. Bush administration and many predominantly Catholic countries, the 191-nation assembly voted 84 to 34, with 37 abstentions, to approve the statement put forward by Honduras and endorsed by its legal committee by a similar margin last month.

Many Islamic countries abstained on grounds there was no consensus at the United Nations on the hot-button issue of whether stem cell research constituted a valid medical pursuit or the taking of human lives.

Opponents of the measure, including Britain, Belgium and China, said the text was not legally binding and would have no impact on their scientists’ pursuit of stem cell research.

At the heart of the debate was so-called therapeutic cloning, in which human embryos are cloned to obtain stem cells used in medical studies and are later discarded.

Many scientists say the technique holds out the hope of a cure for some 100 million people with such conditions as Alzheimer’s, cancer, Diabetes and spinal cord injuries.

But the United States, Costa Rica and other governments have said they view this type of research, for whatever purpose, as the taking of human life. 

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