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Quest for human cloning ban is abandoned

24 November 2004

AFTER three years of agonising and international rancour, the quest for a convention banning human cloning ended in failure. Last week, UN delegates quietly buried the idea, at least for now.

Instead, member states backed an Italian plan to draft a political declaration on human cloning, a document with zero legal clout. “It’s basically a political face-saver,” said a source close to the negotiations. “You can interpret it how you like.”

UN members could have simply signed up to a ban on cloned babies, but the rot set in when an alliance of countries led by the Catholic nations and…

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