UN cloning vote likely this week

Member states will decide whether to ban all cloning or postpone action

Written byAlison McCook
| 2 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
2:00
Share

The legal committee of the United Nations' General Assembly is likely to take some kind of action on Friday (November 19) on the issue of whether to ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning or to ban reproductive cloning and allow individual states to decide whether they want to permit therapeutic cloning research, despite the fact that recent negotiations have not resolved the deep divide in the committee.

The final meeting of the year is scheduled for Friday. If a compromise position is not reached before that, member states will vote on whether to ban cloning entirely, or decide if they want to postpone any action. Whether the committee will vote to defer or decide is impossible to predict, Anne Power of the UK mission to the UN told The Scientist. "Basically, it's quite close," she said. "It's a wait and see."

The UN has been trying to reach agreement on ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Meet the Author

Share
Illustration of a developing fetus surrounded by a clear fluid with a subtle yellow tinge, representing amniotic fluid.
January 2026

What Is the Amniotic Fluid Composed of?

The liquid world of fetal development provides a rich source of nutrition and protection tailored to meet the needs of the growing fetus.

View this Issue
Human-Relevant In Vitro Models Enable Predictive Drug Discovery

Advancing Drug Discovery with Complex Human In Vitro Models

Stemcell Technologies
Redefining Immunology Through Advanced Technologies

Redefining Immunology Through Advanced Technologies

Ensuring Regulatory Compliance in AAV Manufacturing with Analytical Ultracentrifugation

Ensuring Regulatory Compliance in AAV Manufacturing with Analytical Ultracentrifugation

Beckman Coulter Logo
Conceptual multicolored vector image of cancer research, depicting various biomedical approaches to cancer therapy

Maximizing Cancer Research Model Systems

bioxcell

Products

Refeyn logo

Refeyn named in the Sunday Times 100 Tech list of the UK’s fastest-growing technology companies

Parse Logo

Parse Biosciences and Graph Therapeutics Partner to Build Large Functional Immune Perturbation Atlas

Sino Biological Logo

Sino Biological's Launch of SwiftFluo® TR-FRET Kits Pioneers a New Era in High-Throughout Kinase Inhibitor Screening

SPT Labtech Logo

SPT Labtech enables automated Twist Bioscience NGS library preparation workflows on SPT's firefly platform