Vatican pushes U.N. on cloning

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 5, 2004 by Dennis Coday

UNITED NATIONS -- The Vatican has renewed its effort to get the United Nations to develop an international convention that would ban all forms of human cloning. Speaking Oct. 21 to a U.N. committee assigned to consider the issue, the Vatican's U.N. nuncio said both reproductive and therapeutic cloning "involve disrespect for the dignity of the human being."

Costa Rica, supported by the United States and many other countries, sponsored a resolution asking the U.N. General Assembly to appoint a committee to prepare a draft text of a convention against all human cloning.

But Belgium, supported by a number of European countries, sponsored another resolution caning for a convention that would prohibit only reproductive cloning. Backers of this resolution argue that, while the world is divided over therapeutic cloning, a consensus against reproductive cloning already exists, and the United Nations could and should move quickly to produce a convention against it.