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Russia president signs bill extending human cloning ban

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a bill Monday re-implementing a ban on human cloning in Russia, according to the Kremlin Press Service. The bill, which replaces a previous ban on human cloning that expired in 2007, prohibits attempts to clone human beings until the state determines how to regulate the practice. The bill does not prevent embryonic stem cell research. The lower and upper houses of Russia's parliament approved the legislation earlier this month. Last year, the US National Institute of Health (NIH) issued proposed guidelines for funding human embryonic research, which would allow funding only if the embryos would have otherwise been destroyed and the donor consented to their use for research. The guidelines also state that stem cells cannot be obtained from somatic cell nuclear transfer, or cloning, and from embryos specifically created for research. In 2007, the UN Institute of Advanced Studies called for a global ban on cloning. In 2005, the UN General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution calling for a total ban on human cloning, after negotiations for a binding treaty collapsed. More than 50 countries have enacted domestic bans on human cloning.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 29, 2010 (boomark / email).