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The United Nations General Assembly adopted
on 8 March 2005 the Declaration on human being cloning, which is a
non-binding but reference text.
Prohibition of any cloning
“Member states are called on to adopt any measure necessary to protect as
it is advisable human life in the application of life sciences and to
prohibit any kind of human cloning insofar as they are incompatible with
human dignity and the protection of human life. Furthermore, member states
are called on to adopt measures to prevent the exploitation of women in the
application of life sciences and to adopt and implement without notice
national legislation in that connection”. The text was adopted by a
large majority: 84 votes in favour, 34 against and 37 abstentions.
Years of discussion
After several years of discussion without coming to a agreement, despite a
large majority being hostile to all forms of human cloning (cf. Gènéthique
No
37,
47,
58
and
60), the Sixth Commission at least adopted on 18 February 2005 a
declaration in favour of a total prohibition of human cloning and United
Nations General Assembly has just confirmed this vote.
Hard-won victory
Victory seems easy if we consider the number of votes, and yet it was a
hard-won victory… the central sentence was much denied: “to ban all forms
of human cloning insofar as they are incompatible with human dignity and the
protection of human life”. Two amendments aimed at removing from the
text any reference to the protection of human life in cloning techniques
have been thrown out in extremis.
Human life or human dignity?
The amendment particularly proposed by Belgium, aimed at modifying the text
in these terms: “to ban reproductive cloning of human beings; to ban all
forms of human cloning insofar as they are incompatible with human dignity”.
Only keeping the reference to human dignity, and removing human
life one could exclude the embryo protection: people who want to carry
out investigations on embryos and cloning deny any status or dignity for
human embryos because they do not recognize it as a human being.
At the contrary, the adopted text aimed at protecting human life
includes embryos; using the notion of human life, biologically
speaking, allows coming out of the false debate about the definition of
embryo or human being. This Belgian amendment was refused with only three
votes. The tension was clearly perceptible in the audience.
Reactions
If the text conserves some ambiguities, it is still very precious. Reactions
of cloning promoters confirm it… they feels the text as a defeat and as a
threatening for therapeutic cloning. China, Belgium and Great-Britain
declared that “they did not feel linked by this non-binding UNO
declaration”. The representative of India sang the praises of
therapeutic cloning and of “medical revolution” he assures, taken up by
Korean, Thai, Spanish, Japanese, Brazilian, Singaporean, Canadian, Russia
Federation and Dutch representatives. France also was in favour of, at the
international level, authorizing therapeutic cloning, yet banned at the
national level… In a White House communiqué, Georges Bush has “applauded”
UNO vote, considering that cloning “offends human dignity”. The United
States, the majority of African and Arabic countries voted in favour of the
prohibition of all forms of cloning, as well as Germany, Mexico, Hungary and
of course Costa Rica and Honduras, supporters of the text.
European Constitution
Already, although European countries are really divided on this issue, the
European Constitution only foresees in its article II-63 the prohibition of
reproductive cloning… |
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Even though the French
Biomedicine Agency, provided for by the law of 6 August 2004 relative to
bioethics, is not yet set up, three orders signed on 16 February 2005 by the
Health Minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy and François d’Aubert, Minister for
Research, show government determination to develop the research on embryonic
stem cells (JO, 3 March 2005). The two first orders authorize INSERM (the
French Institute of Health & Medical Research) to import from Sweden (Company
Cellartis AB) a line of human embryonic stem cells and to set up the
research protocol in order to carry out researches on the potentialities of
neuronal cells for the treatment of Huntington’s disease. The third order
authorizes the association Généthon to preserve and to sell, under the
conditions provided for by the law, imported human embryonic stem cells.
The first program to profit from
this authorization is the I-Stem project, directed by Pr Marc Peschanski,
coming from a partnership between Inserm and the University of Evry, in
majority financed by AFM. Is the governmental action going in the same way
as Europe, at least as it seems to be expressed in European Parliament? This
one has just adopted, on 10 March 2005, a Resolution set aside, mainly, to
condemn human oocyte trafficking and, in addition, to warn against the risks
of abuses of research on embryos and cloning to focus on the use of adult
stem cells (see article below). |
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European Parliament adopted on
10 March 2005, by 307 votes for, 199 votes against and 25 abstentions, a
resolution on human oocyte trafficking in which it opposed to oocyte
marketing and asks for donation control.
Members of Parliament followed German Green member Hiltrud Breyer, in
reaction to the broadcasting of reports which have unveiled the existence in
Romania of a clinic specialized in oocyte donation to European Union
nationals, against financial compensation (cf.
Gènéthique No 62).
Medical Risk
MPs underline the medical risk that implies oocyte sampling for woman life
and health further to ovarian hyperstimulation.
Avoiding the exploitation of
women
The Parliament insists also on the ”protection of vulnerable persons
susceptible to be victims of trafficking, in particular women” and
reminds "that a woman obliged to sell all or part of her body, including
reproductive cells, becomes a prey for organized criminal networks which
make person and organ trafficking”.
It calls on Member States to take measures to avoid the exploitation of
women and asks the European Commission to “assess national legislations
on ovocyte donation and compensation system for organ and reproductive cell
donation as soon as possible”.
Refusal to any cloning
Within the framework of this resolution, Europeans members are pleased about
the declaration made by the UN General Assembly on 8 March 2005 who
mentioned explicitly the necessity of preventing the exploitation of women;
they call on the Commission to withdraw any financing for cloning human
beings within the framework of any European Union program and particularly
of the 7th Framework Program Research.
None financing for cloning
Concerning research on embryos and embryonic stem cells, the Parliament ask
the Commission to apply the subsidiary principle so that Member States in
which this kind of research is authorized, finance them with national
budgets, the Union having to focus on adult and umbilical stem cells which
are authorized in all the countries and made possible the successful
treatment of patients. We remind that in November 2003, after a stormy
debate, most of European members came out in favour of research financing
involving the destruction of embryos but the European ministers for Research
did not managed to agree; It seems that, since then, none decision was made
at the European level (see Gènéthique
No
40,
45 and
48). It seems that the European Commissioner for Research who authorizes,
on a case-by-case basis, to finance research on embryos.
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From 28 February to 11 March
2005, an examination and follow-up meeting on commitment taken in the
“Peking action Program” adopted in 1995 by the fourth World Conference on
women held on UNO headquarter, in New York,.
Health as regards
reproduction
In its article 94, Peking program proposed: “health as regards
reproduction is a total status of well-being… It supposes the right to have
a safe satisfactory sexual, and the freedom and the possibility to decide
whether and when we want to have children. This involves that men and women
have the right to be informed about safe, efficient, accessible and
acceptable methods of family planning and to use the suitable one or any
other method for birth control which is not illegal as well as the right to
health services…". The article is sufficiently vague to include abortion
among methods for birth control. There is a big difference between that and
becoming a right…
Right to abortion?
Feminist associations wanted to benefit from current discussions in order
abortion was recognized as a right and then to impose it on countries which
have not legalize it. The United States rapidly reacted proposing by
amendment that it is explicitly mentioned that the document of Peking did
not create a right to abortion. In few days, this amendment received a so
significant number of support signatures from worldwide associations (678,
000) that the feminist lobby preferred to avoid the debate.
The amendment having no longer any reason to be, the United States removed
it and are pleased about this victory.
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