The Bioethics Council appointed by President Bush of the USA to make recommendations to help resolve the ongoing debate on human cloning in the US has come out in support of a 4-year moratorium on the creation of cloned human embryos or therapeutic cloning. It was, however, a slim majority with 10 of the 18 members supporting the 4-year moratorium, seven supported allowing research using cloned embryos subject to tight government control, and one member took no position at all. The members, however, unanimously agreed that reproductive cloning should be banned outright, for both practical and ethical reasons.

The report said, "The Council, reflecting the differences of opinion in American Society, is divided regarding the ethics of research involving cloned embryos, yet we agree that all parties to the debate have concerns vital to defend."

But while the debate goes in the USA, Dr. Severino Antinori, a world renowned fertility specialist from Italy, claims that the birth of the first cloned human baby could occur around December 2002. According to him the number of pregnancies is now five, but he would not reveal where they were underway. They are not happening in Italy since Italy prohibits reproductive cloning. The cloned pregnancies were apparently all created the same way, by inserting DNA from the prospective father into an egg that had been stripped of its own DNA, then implanting the resulting embryo in the prospective mother's womb. Despite Antinori's claims, many experts remain skeptical of its success, but even if it turns out to be true. Dr. Antinori would have then "violated every ethical standard that should govern scientific research," as Bioethicist Mark Siegler, Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago put it.