UN deadlock defeats cloning ban

After a number of delays and much maneuvering and politicking, a deadlocked United Nations has finally defeated a ban on therapeutic (research) cloning. The defeat is a blow to the Bush Administration, which has tried for years to get the international body to throw its weight behind a ban on the technology. While almost all nations support a ban on human reproductive cloning -- cloning procedures that result in a living child -- many nations support the use of cloning technology for medical research. In fact, much of the research goes on in the United States, and a three billion dollar bond issue in California promises to keep the US in the forefront of such research, unless our more conservative Congress passes a US ban.