 |
 |
Bid At UN To Revive Shelved Stem Cell Treaty DEC 5, 2003 FRI UNITED NATIONS - A bloc of 40 countries will try to overturn a recent United Nations vote and revive work on a global treaty that would ban medical research on stem cells, diplomats said on Wednesday. The question of whether to begin drafting a treaty to prohibit both the cloning of human beings and all research involving the cloning of human cells was scheduled to come to a vote in the 191-nation UN General Assembly on Monday. The drive for a broad cloning ban - rather than a narrow one on human cloning alone, which has virtually universal support at the UN - has been led by the United States and Costa Rica. It has strong support from the US anti-abortion movement and many predominantly Catholic countries, which see stem cell research as the taking of human lives. However, the assembly's legal committee voted last month to recommend that drafting of the treaty be sidelined for two years, to build a broad consensus on the treaty's goals. The scientific community has lobbied UN missions to preserve the right to pursue stem cell research, referred to as therapeutic cloning. The motion to defer drafting of the treaty was approved by a razor-thin margin, which tempted supporters of a broad cloning ban to try to override the recommendation when it comes up for a final vote. 'We are going to vote against the recommendation and once we win, we are going to introduce our resolution,' said a Costa Rican diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous. -- SOURCE: The Straits Times, Singapore / Reuters http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/techscience/story/0,4386,223628,00.html * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn