UK researchers can expect delays in receiving a license from the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (London) to allow them to create cloned human embryos for stem-cell research (Nat. Biotechnol. 19, 97, 2001). The UK House of Lords on January 22 voted with a 70% majority to extend the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act to allow therapeutic cloning. But an anti-abortion group, ProLife Alliance, is suing the Secretary of State for Health at the UK High Court, seeking to overturn the decision. The group is calling for new primary legislation on the grounds that embryos created by cell nuclear replacement are not generated by “fertilization” and thus do not satisfy the definition of “embryo” in the Act and so cannot be covered by the newly extended law. As a result, instead of coming into force on 31 January, the extended law has been put on hold until the hearing, which is expected to take place on June 15. However, as Anne McLaren from the Wellcome/CRC Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology (Cambridge, UK), points out, “An embryo is an embryo and I would be surprised if the judiciary review comes to another opinion.”