On Nov. 6, 2003, the UN General Assembly’s legal committee voted 80 to 79 to postpone for two years consideration of a proposal for an ad hoc committee to draft a ban on all forms of human cloning. Fifteen countries, including Canada, abstained. Just the previous day, then Health Minister Anne McLellan had said Canada would support a UN ban on human cloning, so when some Islamic states put forward a motion to delay the cloning ban proposal for two years, it is surprising that Canada abstained from voting. “It means we’re going to see further progress in the area of creating human beings and embryos for research purposes and perhaps even in the area of reproductive cloning,” James Roche, spokesperson for the Catholic Health Association of Canada, was quoted as saying by Canadian Catholic News.

However, due to the strong lobbying efforts of Costa Rica, the General Assembly in December agreed to shorten the delay from two years to one. This means the UN will once again address cloning when it begins its next session in September of this year.

The US and Costa Rica are the main sponsors of the ban which is supported by many Latin American, African and some Islamic nations and some Catholic European countries such as Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, Lifenews.com reported. The UK does not support the global ban and currently allows therapeutic cloning. - BM