Does the UN vote on cloning matter?

It depends on who you are. As far as the British government goes, scientists in this country will still be allowed to do therapeutic cloning regardless of what the UN says. But in the US, cloning has become an election issue. If the UN comes out against all forms of cloning, it could bolster the Bush administration's stance and make Democratic candi date John Kerry's progressive policies tougher to introduce.

Countries are due to finish voting at a UN debate on cloning today. They have two choices: President Bush is calling for delegates to support a proposal from Costa Rica to ban both therapeutic and reproductive cloning. The UK, meanwhile, is backing a Belgian proposal to ban human reproductive cloning but allow individual countries to decide about therapeutic cloning for themselves. Human reproductive cloning - the creation of cloned babies - is already illegal in the UK, while therapeutic cloning to produce stem cells, the master cells of the human body, is allowed though tightly regulated.

This week, Britain's most prestigious scientific body, the Royal Society, called on the UN to ignore Bush's call to ban cloning entirely, and warned that a botched ban could have serious consequences. "The danger of an unworkable resolution on human cloning is that maverick scientists, including those already claiming to be carrying out such work, will attempt reproductive cloning in countries that have not passed laws against it," said Bob May, president of the society.

"From a world perspective, the vote matters because if the UN comes out against something, that doesn't help it anywhere," says Chris Higgins, director of clinical sciences at the Medical Research Council. But in Britain, at least, the outcome of the UN vote is all but immaterial. The Department of Health says: "We wouldn't support any move to ban therapeutic cloning and if the UN tries to ban it, we wouldn't agree to it".

The picture is very different in the US, though, where Kerry's views are directly opposed to Bush's. "This is a big political issue in the States now," says Higgins. "Kerry's made a big play on how he wants this research to prosper. What would he do if the UN opposed it? Presumably it would be very difficult to reverse what Bush has already put in place."

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