Summary of Noelle Lenoir's remarks before the NBAC

In her remarks before the National Bioethics Advisory Commission on  September 18, 1997, the chair of the International Bioethics Committee of  UNESCO stated that the United States opposed a German proposal to ban human cloning. Noelle Lenoir referred to a meeting of her committee in Paris July 22-25, 1997. At that meeting, the German delegation proposed to ban human cloning.  Their idea was beaten back, replaced with compromise language that is subject to  widely varying interpretations. The watered-down language will be presented to  the General Conference of UNESCO during their meeting October 21 to November 12, 1997. Lenoir said:

1. She opposes prohibitions on human cloning.

"I hope very much that . . . Dolly is not to have a sister or a brother until November [when the General Conference of UNESCO meets], that is to say, until the adoption of this takes because each time you have a very emotional event in the field of biotechnology. Each time public opinion and politicians ask for prohibitions. So, we don't want that to occur in the next future."

2. The United States opposed the German proposal.

". . . your country has a delegation, which is representedby Eric [Meslin, from NIH] here and he was positive and very helpful because the German had certain very strong position opposed to biotechnology."

3, 4. The text is a compromise. The compromise was between the German position (ban human cloning) and the position of France, Japan and the United States (protect research).

"So, this committee had a meeting in July and made a text which we present the consensus to be more precise. We compromise. It is a consensus but it is, in fact, a compromise. Countries were very much opposed to biotechnology and those were much more in favor, the U.K., the United States, Japan. So, it is a compromise, which represents the balance which has been reached . . ."

5, 6. The text could be changed at the UNESCO general meeting in November. If there are changes, it will be in the direction of more legislation.

". . . normally, it is going to be adopted by consensus with the possibly reservations from states, but normally it is a final text and I must say that I hope it is a final text because if it is going to be changed, the change will be certainly in favor of prohibitions."

7. Protecting human dignity (i.e., banning human cloning) is a value that must  be balanced against freedom of research,which derives from freedom of expression. (See full text.)

These excerpts are taken from the official transcript of the NBAC meeting. The complete transcript of the meeting is available from the NBAC. Tel: 301-402-4242.