Policy

U.S. Laws
Table: State Cloning Laws (pdf file)
International Legislation on Cloning and Germline Intervention (pdf file)
Table: International Legislation on Cloning and Germline Intervention (pdf file)
U.S. Proposed Laws
International Legal Situation
United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning
Germany's Stem Cell Act (2002) (pdf file)
Germany's Embryo Protection Act (pdf file)
California Proposition 71

International Legal Situation

There is a clear trend in the international context toward a prohibition on all use of human cloning. The Canadian Parliament has just passed legislation comprehensively banning human cloning The Federal Government of Australia, which like that of Canada permits embryo research in some circumstances, has also passed a comprehensive cloning ban. Germany passed a forward-looking, comprehensive cloning ban in 1990. Mexico has also passed such a ban, and France is in the process of doing so with government support. Similarly, a proposal to ban cloning to bring about the birth of a child and research cloning has been approved by Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, but it needs approval from Brazil's Senate before becoming a law.

Altogether, 30 nations have now enacted comprehensive cloning prohibitions. Another 16 have laws that prohibit cloning for purposes of live birth. Many governments, such as that of the United States, are opposed to all uses of this technology in human beings, but have yet to pass legislation to give effect to their position. Five countries -- the United Kingdom, China, Singapore, Belgium, and Cuba -- have adopted public policy positions that specifically encourage research cloning.

Some countries have instituted moratoria in order to assess the impact of cloning and other reproductive technologies. In 1998, Israel adopted a five year moratorium on human cloning, defining cloning as "the creation of an entire human being, who is genetically identical to another person or fetus, alive or dead." The same law banned interventions to create a child through the use of reproductive cells that have undergone a permanent intentional genetic modification. Spain and Belgium are also using a five year period to assess human cloning.

Some countries' human cloning laws use ambiguous language or are based on assumptions that render the laws' effects unclear. For example, Spain, Victoria Australia and Western Australia prohibit cloning to bring about an identical human being. But because cloning includes mitochondrial DNA from the egg donor, the clones are not genetically identical. (This ambiguity also exists in Rhode Island's cloning law.)

Countries that ban embryo research may not actually prohibit cloning to bring about the birth of a child or research cloning because somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) may not be considered embryo research. SCNT utilizes an experimental procedure of injecting a somatic cell into an enucleated egg, resulting in a cloned embryo. Once the cloned embryo is created, it can be implanted into a surrogate using standard in vitro fertilization techniques. There is, therefore, no "experiment" after the cloned embryo is created.

Britain believed that it had a law that prevented human cloning. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990 (HFEA) requires that activities that fall within the HFEA -- such as the creation, storage, handling and use of human embryos -- may be undertaken only if they explicitly fall within the law or are approved by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The HFEA defines an ³embryo² as a "live human embryo where fertilisation is complete" or "an egg in the process of fertilisation." Parliament assumed that because cloning to create a human embryo did not fall within the law, such conduct was prohibited.

But in November 2000, the Pro-Life Alliance brought suit claiming that cloned embryos are not covered by HFEA. On November 15, 2001, the British High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court, agreed, stating: "With some reluctance, since it would leave organisms produced by CNR [cell nuclear replacement] outside the statutory and licensing framework, I have come to the conclusion that to insert these words would involve an impermissible rewriting and extension of the definition." A higher court overturned the ruling, finding that human embryo cloning was in fact covered by HFEA, but not before the Parliament had already passed a new law criminalizing the act of placing "in a woman a human embryo which has been created otherwise than by fertilisation." Britainıs new law permits research cloning as long as the cloned embryo is destroyed within fourteen days.

The member States of the Council of Europe and other States in the European Community addressed the issue of human cloning in the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine. In 1997, the 19 countries party to the Convention signed a treaty that contains an additional protocol expressly prohibiting "any intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead." The protocol defines a genetically identical human being as a human being that shares the same nuclear gene set as another human being.

In 2001, the UN General Assembly endorsed a Franco-German proposal to initiate discussions towards an international convention to prohibit cloning to bring about the birth of a child. Many states, including the United States, took the view that they would support only a comprehensive prohibition on human cloning for whatever purpose. During meetings of the UN's Sixth Committee in 2003, facing major domestic criticism for its position opposing a comprehensive cloning ban, the German federal government withdrew its leading role in the debate, leaving Belgium to propose a convention that would include a ban on cloning to bring about the birth of a child and either a ban, or regulation of, research cloning. A resolution proposed by Costa Rica seeking a comprehensive ban gained 66 co-sponsors, against 22 for the Belgian Resolution. However, in November 2003, the Sixth Committee voted 80-79, and 15 abstentions, in favor of a procedural motion by Iran offered on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) (15 of whose members were in fact co-sponsors of the Costa Rican resolution) to suspend the discussion until 2005. But after informal discussions in the general assembly, it was agreed to return to the matter in the Fall of 2004.

read version with cites