Volume 6, Number 46

November 7, 2003

UN Postpones Vote on Human Cloning on Brink of Pro-life Victory

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM) As momentum continued to build in support of a total ban on human cloning at the United Nations, supporters of a partial ban, including France and Germany, rallied behind and barely passed an eleventh-hour procedural motion that defers discussion of a convention on cloning for two years, until the 60th session of the General Assembly in 2005. The vote, occurring in a crowded, tense, United Nations conference room, was passed by a single vote, 80 to 79, with 15 abstentions.

     Countries including Costa Rica, the United States and the Holy See had been negotiating intensely over the past few months for a total ban, and as nations became more conversant with the scientific and ethical ramifications of the creation of cloned human beings for use in medical research projects, support for such a ban was undeniably gaining strength. By today, over sixty countries had co-sponsored the total ban proposal, and another forty had voiced their intentions to vote in favor of the proposal.

     But many Muslim nations remained undecided, and thus the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) introduced the procedural motion to defer. In its statement, the OIC emphasized that this motion represented no decision on the substance of the matter, but was an effort to gain more time for Muslim scientific and religious experts to study the issue.

     Proponents of a ban on cloning for reproductive but not experimental purposes, including Germany, France, Belgium, China, the United Kingdom and Singapore, supported the OIC motion to defer. Many delegations immediately questioned their motives in doing so, wondering whether their decision to delay was simply an effort to avoid a vote they looked increasingly likely to lose. Uganda asked “why we were informed that this was an important issue that had to be arrested before it got out of hand” by the same countries now advocating deferral. Another delegate told the Friday Fax, “How will France and Germany explain support for non-action when they have been saying for two years that urgent action is needed.”

     Hubert Hueppe, a high-ranking member of the German parliament agreed, telling the Friday Fax that “Today’s German vote is in irreconcilable contradiction to the German government’s earlier statements at the UN that the issue needed immediate action.” Hueppe also called the German support for delay “especially disgraceful,” charging that “Our government has been disdainful of our federal parliament’s will. The government has ignored parliament’s unambiguous demand for a comprehensive ban, expressed in a motion adopted by an overwhelming majority.”

     Delegations also showed concern that today’s outcome would further erode the reputation of the United Nations as an institution. Spain worried that the decision to postpone would “send the message that we have proven incapable” of addressing the issue. Another delegate said that the UN’s very credibility was at stake if could not outlaw such an obvious evil as “the creation of human beings for the deliberate purpose of their destruction.”

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