Last month, Prof Wilmut announced that he was abandoning the cloning of human embryos in stem cell research in favour of a new technique developed in Japan.

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LONDON, England (Reuters) -- The House of Lords has backed new government rules to allow limited cloning of human embryos, though religious leaders from across the spectrum urged them to oppose the measures.

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The basic techniques of human embryo creation that Dr. Edwards pioneered form the technical foundation of in vitro fertilization, human cloning techniques, genetic screening of human embryos and embryonic-stem-cell research.

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In exchange, Brownback backed off amendments that would have banned human cloning and prohibited creating animal-human hybrid embryos.

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Frist's principles include banning human cloning and allowing taxpayer dollars for research only on embryos created for in-vitro fertilization and not from abortions.

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"The administration is strongly opposed to any legislation that would prohibit human cloning for reproductive purposes but permit the creation of cloned embryos for research, " the policy statement said.

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