Battleangel

This is fairly big news that snuck by relatively unnoticed.

The United Nations has given up its attempt to introduce a worldwide legal ban on some or all types of human cloning. On Tuesday its deeply divided general assembly voted to adopt a watered-down “declaration” that condemns all forms of human cloning but is not legally binding.

The declaration, which was passed by 84 votes to 34, with 37 abstentions, prohibits “all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life”. But it has been widely criticised for being imprecise and meaningless.

But many industrialised nations, including the UK, France, Norway, Japan, China and South Korea, voted against the declaration because it does not explicitly allow therapeutic cloning.

However, many scientists are frustrated because they had hoped that the UN would use its influence to ban reproductive cloning, which no nation advocates.

Source: New Scientist

Well, from my point of view, a watered-down declaration is a good thing as it ties everyone’s hands. Gives people room to breathe and also I’m not a big fan of society setting the bounds for research. And we can be sure that the opponents of reproductive cloning will have a problem getting through now. And that is the good news.

The main question is why people go to some much trouble to ban reproductive cloning? Can anyone give a single reason that is a bit more solid than being “incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life”. What kind of quasi-religious nonsense is that?
Sure, reproductive cloning is in its infancy now, there are certain issues to solve, but once we do so and perhaps in order to do so, we need an open research climate. Something this declaration sort of guarantees.

The bottom line is that reproductive cloning is a perfectly good way to procreate, and one that is, in the end, something that the individual, not society, has to choose. And, in addition, secondary benefits of perfecting the technology will be unmeasurable.