MEPs voted on 10 April 2003 against the practice of creating human embryos for medical research purposes, the first major step towards an EU-wide ban.
The practice of so-called ’therapeutic cloning’, banned in some EU countries but legal in the UK, sees embryos created in order for their stem-cells (or master cells) to be used for medical research. Following the plenary vote, the Industry Committee organised a hearing of experts on the wider aspects of research involving embryonic stem cells, the debate focused on when human life starts and the moral and legal status of the human embryo.
