Dail bid for human cloning ban

The Labour Party is to launch a Private Members Bill in the Dail calling for a legislative ban on human cloning in Ireland.

Labour’s Human Reproduction Bill 2003 seeks to prohibit the bringing into being of a human embryo other than by a process of fertilisation, intended to lead to childbirth.

The party will announce further details about its move later this week.

Labour's Mary Upton, a scientist, in whose name the Bill is being published, said that in the wake of reports from the Raelian Movement that a cloned baby had been born in the United States, and also possibly in Europe, Ireland still had no legislative prohibition on cloning.

The Labour Bill would make it illegal to clone a human being in Ireland, in line with the calls on all countries from the United Nations and European Union to legislate in that regard.