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Though cloning is already illegal in Germany, medical associations and a broad roster of politicians on Friday called on the government to take a strong ethical stand on the issue and push for a binding international ban. The move came after Britain on Wednesday gave scientists the go ahead to clone human embryos for purposes of medical research. British law, however, still prohibits the actual cloning of humans.
Leading the charge, the German Medical Association called for the complete prohibition of all forms of embryo cloning. "We can't allow embryos to be harvested like raw materials," association president Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe told reporters.
Other medical experts concurred. "The indivisibility of human rights are being eroded under the blanket of research freedom," said Frank Ulrich Montgomery, chairman of the Marburger Association of Doctors. He also called for a Europe-wide law protecting embryos.
Most politicians united
Wolfgang Wodarg -- a member of the ruling Social Democratic Party and chairman off the bio-ethics commission in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament -- called Britain's decision a "catastrophe." The Social Democrats' junior coalition partner...