MEPs: Ban animal cloning, and ban cloned food, feed and imports too!

So, a month or so ago, I wrote about a European Parliament hearing on animal cloning. Well, today, MEPs in Brussels voted on a draft law to ban the cloning of farm animals. MEPs raised the issues of animal welfare as well as ethical concerns.

Would you eat cloned meat?

To quote directly from the European Parliament’s press release:

“Due to the negative effects on animal welfare, cloning for farming purposes is rejected by a large majority of consumers. Furthermore, we do not need cloning to ensure meat supplies in the EU. Prohibiting cloning is therefore a matter of European values and principles. Consequently, the ban should apply not only to clones themselves but also to their reproductive material (semen and embryos), their descendants and any products derived from them, including imports. This is necessary because otherwise we would merely promote cloning in third countries”, said Environment Committee co-rapporteur Renate Sommer (EPP, DE).

“There are two key points that we focused on from the outset: protecting the health of EU citizens and consumers and extending the ban to cover the descendants of cloned animals”, said co-rapporteur law Giulia Moi (EFDD, IT). “The ban on placing animal clones or their offspring on the EU market is a red line for us. We are well aware that cloning is allowed in certain third countries that EU trades with, but we cannot allow these products to be placed on the EU market. We also want to ensure that cloning of animals would not become a common practice within the EU” she added.

More importantly, the law would ban imports of animals from third countries,where animals are already cloned for farming purposes.

Most importantly, isn’t it obvious that EU citizens oppose animal cloning.

Next steps

The report will be put to a vote by Parliament as a whole at the 7-9 September plenary session in Strasbourg.

Video

In Europe, cloned animals haven’t made their way into the food supply chain – yet – but they’re not banned from it either. EU legislation on cloning is proving a hard nut to crack.

Cloned animals. Would you eat them? (video)