Royal Society calls for ban on human reproductive cloning

The Royal Society has called on the United Nations to introduce a ban on human reproductive cloning at its 59th General Session in October.

The call is made as the Inter Academy Panel, the umbrella body for the world’s national science academies, writes this week to its members to back an international ban on human reproductive cloning that still allows individual countries to make their own decisions about whether to outlaw therapeutic cloning.

The Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly will begin discussions in October on the introduction of a convention on human cloning. The Royal Society, together with 67 of the world’s national science academies, is calling for the convention to outlaw human reproductive cloning, but not therapeutic cloning.

Professor Richard Gardner, chair of the Royal Society working group on stem cell research and cloning, said: “It is clear that if the convention bans all forms of human cloning, the UK, and other countries which currently permit carefully regulated therapeutic cloning, will not sign up to it. To effectively stop cowboy cloners claiming that their work on human reproductive cloning is acceptable, because it is not outlawed throughout the world, a UN convention must be passed that all countries are willing to endorse.”

Professor Gardner continued: “For countries that have not yet brought in a ban, a UN convention which draws a clear distinction between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning will provide invaluable guidance in passing effective legislation. It should be noted that the United States, unlike the UK, has still not outlawed reproductive cloning because of attempts to include therapeutic cloning in the ban.”

Ahead of the UN meeting the Inter Academy Panel has circulated a statement on human cloning along with a letter to all its member academies, urging them to lobby their governments to vote for a worldwide convention that bans reproductive cloning, but which excludes therapeutic cloning.