UK government acts to close legal loophole on human cloning
Following the judgement by the UK's High Court on 15 November that the country's existing legislation did not cover human cloning, the British government has adopted a two-pronged strategy to ensure that the UK does not become host to Europe's first human cloning experiments. Firstly, the country's government is appealing against the original High Court decision. The highest legal authority in the country is the House of Lords, a step beyond the High Court. Secondly, the government's health secretary, Alan Milburn, announced that new legislation would be sent to Parliament in the week starting 26 November. The judgement had been seized upon by Italian fertility specialist, Dr Severino Antinori, who said that as human cloning was effectively no longer illegal in the UK, he would use it as a base for his human cloning programme.