The French Senate has passed a ban on all cloning, including so-called "therapeutic cloning," and has declared reproductive cloning a crime "against the human species." The bill will not become law until June, after going before the Assembly and then back to the Senate.
"Since reproductive cloning interrupts the normal process of the human species in its natural progress, it seems appropriate to punish it as a crime against the human species. Cloning would violate our uniqueness and our human evolution and its perpetrators will be punished under French law," said Sen. Nicolas About, president of the Social Affairs Commission and the bill's sponsor.
Leftist senators tried to remove therapeutic cloning from the ban, claiming it is necessary for medical progress. But Sen. About replied that the ban could only be removed if scientists come up with evidence, through experiments on animals, that human embryos are needed to make medical advances.