US panel recommends therapeutic cloning moratorium

The US President's Council on Bioethics has recommended that a four-year moratorium on therapeutic cloning be imposed, along with a ban on reproductive cloning. The recommendation was made following a majority vote by council members, although seven of the 18 members wanted therapeutic cloning to be made legal and carefully controlled by regulation.

The US Senate had been deliberating two cloning bills - one of which would ban cloning altogether, and another which would ban reproductive cloning only. However, both bills have stalled in the Senate, meaning that a vote on the matter is unlikely to come this year. President Bush has publicly supported a ban on all forms of human cloning.

Both sides of the debate agree that the bioethics council's report will help the arguments for those in favour of a total ban. By rejecting the possibility that therapeutic cloning research should be allowed to take place at the present time, the council is implicitly opposing it. Leon Kass, head of the council, explained that therapeutic cloning 'offers the prospect - though speculative at the moment - of gaining valuable knowledge and treatment for many diseases', but that it means 'the exploitation and destruction of nascent human life, and risks coarsening our moral sensibilities'. For this reason, he said, a moratorium was necessary.

Meanwhile, President Bush has authorised the use of federal funds to carry out research with stem cells taken from aborted human fetuses. Critics say this has 'complicated the ethical debate surrounding the government's policy on human embryonic stem cell research'. Last summer, Bush allowed the use of federal funds only for research using embryonic stem cells derived before 9 August 2001.