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Canada Flip-Flops at UN: Now Supports Ban on All Forms of Human Cloning

Switched its tune after duplicity was exposed to all the nations of the world

OTTAWA, November 5, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The pro-life movement in Canada welcomed a flip-flop in the Canadian government's position on the proposed United Nations ban on human cloning today. Speaking in the House of Commons today Health Minister Anne McLellan announced that Canada is now supporting the Costa Rican resolution for a comprehensive ban on human cloning.

She said, "My department has been working with the Department of Foreign Affairs and, to the best of my knowledge, we will be supporting a resolution that bans all forms of cloning, be it therapeutic or reproductive." Although McLellan denied it, the announcement is a reversal of Canada's former stand to support a competing UN proposal seeking to ban reproductive cloning only. Only last month McLellan, again speaking in the House of Commons, said, "achieving a broad international consensus to ban all forms of cloning may not be possible at this time. But it is clear that the international community is ready to pass a ban on human reproductive cloning. I would suggest that Canada is supporting this effort."

Canadian Alliance Health Critic Rob Merrifield was responsible for eliciting both responses from McLellan. "Its the eleventh hour, but we are very pleased the Liberals have come around," said Merrifield. "The Canadian Alliance pushed the government on this issue and those efforts obviously paid off. We argued that the government shouldn't take one position at home and another at the U.N."

Tomorrow at the U.N., countries will vote on rival resolutions toward the establishment of an international convention on human cloning. One resolution, sponsored by Costa Rica and backed by over 60 countries, calls for prohibitions on all forms of human cloning. A resolution sponsored by Belgium and supported by 23 countries would only ban reproductive cloning.

Campaign Life Coalition's Samantha Singson, a pro-life lobbyist at the United Nations, told LifeSite, "Canada's duplicity in claiming a total ban on cloning at home but arguing for a partial-only ban at the UN, was exposed to all the nations of the world. That embarrassment forced them to come clean on the issue and support the full cloning ban at the UN."

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