Independent Perspective News

By JULIA PRESTON

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 7 — The United States, supported by 36 other nations, blocked an initiative by Germany and France today for a worldwide ban on cloning to create human beings, insisting that the ban should include all forms of human cloning.

The Bush administration made its move in a procedural motion in a committee of the General Assembly, diplomats said. Rather than move ahead with negotiations on the German and French proposal, the Assembly's Sixth Committee, which deals with international legal matters, decided by consensus to postpone the cloning debate until September 2003.

The diplomats said that the committee acted after it was clear that no general accord would be reached on either the French and German proposal for a treaty banning only "reproductive cloning of human beings," or on a competing resolution by the United States and Spain calling for a ban on "human cloning" across the board.

The ban proposed by the Bush administration would include cloning of human embryos for medical research or therapy. Germany made plain its frustration with the outcome.

"This leaves the field wide open to those working towards giving birth to a cloned human being," said Christian Walter Much, who read the German statement, which was also endorsed by France. "It underlines that insisting upon far-reaching principles sometimes leads to a situation which makes it impossible to act effectively."

Berlin had hoped to move quickly, as a first step, to bar cloning to create human babies, leaving the door open to a broader ban later on.

American diplomats called the decision today an important victory.

"We were pleased that we were able to reach a consensus that on such a vital issue there needs to be continued work," said Carolyn L. Willson, legal adviser to the American Mission here. "We've seen momentum building for a total ban," she added.

American officials argued that research cloning involves creating embryos that later have to be destroyed. The technique "raises profound ethical and moral questions and is highly controversial," the United States said in a position paper in February.