France’s Chirac to Seek Ban on Human Cloning

French President Jacques Chirac said Tuesday he will call on the Group of Seven industrialized countries, which includes the United States, to ban human cloning when they meet in Denver in June, while German scientists formally urged a worldwide ban on human cloning.

“Even if cloning is clearly banned in France,” Chirac said, “the key problem is outlawing it around the world.”

In Paris, Chirac had summoned a panel of ethics experts to discuss “fears” and “fantasies” raised this year when geneticists in Scotland used a cell from an adult sheep to create a virtually identical adult.

France also plans to ask the European Council at its June meeting in Amsterdam to adopt a declaration banning human cloning, Chirac said.

At a news conference in Bonn on Tuesday, the German Research Assn., haunted by memories of Nazi attempts to breed a master race, formally urged that human cloning be banned.

While some U.S. and British scientists defend the idea of cloning human cells for medical reasons, the German scientists issued a more stringent report calling on Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s government to seek a comprehensive worldwide ban. Human cloning is already against the law in Germany.

“The cloning of humans would be a violation of human existence,” said Wolfgang Fruehwald, president of the German Research Assn., arguing that a moratorium on research would not be enough.

President Clinton has temporarily banned any federally funded research on human cloning until he receives policy recommendations from a national bioethics advisory board that is holding hearings this spring.