The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced a draft bill Monday titled "Life Ethics and Safety," which banned the nuclear transfer of body cells for human cloning from nest year. The only exception will be if the National Life Ethics Consulting Committee to be created under the Presidential Office gives special permission.

The NLECC will be composed of nine doctors and scientists and nine representatives of religious, legal, women's and civic groups.

The ministry said the bill calls for a ten-year prison sentence for anyone attempting human cloning and a three-year term for all those assisting in the procedure. It added that current experiments using 14-day old frozen embryos that had gone past their preservation expiration date would be allowed after seeking ministerial approval.

In addition the bill limits the selection of superior sperm and ova during the in-vitro-fertilization process, the selling of sperm and ova, the use of pre-donated sperm and ova from people who later died, and the harvesting of sperm and ova from anyone under the age of 18.

The bill also limits the use of genetic treatments to diseases that have no current alternate cure such as cancer and AIDS.

(Park Joong-hyun, jhpark@chosun.com )