Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

You have identified yourself. I did not want to make this a personal debate, Senator Patterson, and that is why I deliberately did not identify you. But Senator Patterson said:

I confess to being one of those described as ‘disingenuous’. Indeed, I did claim that passage of the legislation then would lead to further consequences. The proposition before us today highlights how quickly we as humans become desensitized once we overstep the mark of respecting human life. As soon as we countenance the commoditisation of human life for utilitarian reasons, we are on a slippery slope. And today we are presented with a proposition that is a lot further down that slope than we were willing to countenance only a short four years ago.

Make no mistake; other attempts will be made in the future to further loosen the controls. You see, once we countenance the destruction of human embryos for research, albeit restricted to a specific class, we countenance the deliberate destruction of human embryos. It then becomes a small step to extend the proposition by extrapolating that if it is not absolutely morally repugnant to destroy human embryos for research, then why would it be wrong to create human embryos to destroy them—once again, of course, in the name of research? Some were cajoled into voting for the Research Involving Human Embryos Bill 2002 on the so-called ‘strong’, ‘ironclad’ prohibitions that would never allow the deliberate creation of human embryos for destruction, no matter how allegedly worthy the cause. But, of course, regrettably that is the very proposition in the bill before us.

To overcome this obvious stark reality, proponents of the change are now, if I may use the word, ‘disingenuously’ changing the terminology in the hope and belief that it will miraculously change the unavoidable fact. You see, a rose will continue to have a soft, sweet scent, even if I decided to call it by another name, such as ‘somatic cell nuclear transfer’. Hence the old truism remains today: a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. I say to senators: human cloning by any other name, such as ‘somatic cell nuclear transfer’, should still be prohibited, as we decided in 2002. The reality is that an embryo created by the fusion of an egg and sperm is an embryo just as much as if the embryo were created by somatic cell nuclear transfer. An embryo is an embryo is an embryo.

We will be told no doubt that it will be illegal to implant this cloned embryo or allow it to develop beyond 14 days. But I ask two questions. Why this prohibition? And what do we do if it does actually happen?

Why these restrictions unless they are human embryos? The very nature of the restrictions cries out in acknowledgement of their humanity. Do we put these restrictions on animal cloning? No, we do not. The conclusions are inescapable: the human embryos created by cloning are not ethically or morally different from those created by an egg and sperm. Just as much as Dolly the sheep, originating life as she did as a cloned embryo, was accepted as a sheep, called a sheep, had the characteristics of a sheep and looked like a sheep, similarly a human embryo is just that irrespective of the method of its creation. The simple question is: if a cloned human embryo were implanted into a woman’s uterus, would we call the resultant birth anything other than a human? Would that person not be entitled to all the human rights we enjoy, or would the resultant child be considered a lower life form or a lower being? I trust they would not be so considered. That answers fully, in my respectful submission to the Senate, the issue of whether the human embryo produced by cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer is morally and ethically different from that created by an egg and sperm. Clearly it is not. To seek to differentiate and argue a qualitative difference for cloned human embryos as somehow being less worthy is unsustainable and untenable.

I now turn to the practical consequences of the proposition before us. For human cloning to be possible, it would require lots and lots of human eggs. Women’s eggs would need to be harvested and, presumably, fertility manipulated to make the harvesting process worthwhile. To commodify human fertility in this way is unconscionable. The manipulation of fertility and the harvesting of eggs would be utterly unrelated to the medical needs of the woman or a desire to fall pregnant. In short, it is demeaning of women and their fertility.

So why is this impractical and unethical proposition being promoted? It is being promoted on the basis of some potential miracle cure although no evidence of a breakthrough is to hand, even during those four years of destroying the so-called surplus embryos. False, cruel and heartless hopes have been raised in those suffering from debilitating diseases. Overwhelmingly, however, adult stem cells are proving to be and are providing exciting developments without the attendant ethical issues.

I accept that, in the purist sense, embryonic stem cell research adds to our total body of knowledge in an abstract sense. But to justify scientific research, we need a moral construct. It simply is not good enough to say that a course of action would add to our body of knowledge; otherwise, we can justify the type of experimentation in the name of science that occurred under national socialism. Science is not an end in itself; it needs to exist in a moral and ethical construct, and the ethical construct suggested by the Lockhart review is unacceptable. Human life, in the form of an embryo, is unfortunately now to be considered as a commodity for public use. This may sound harsh, but page 3 of the explanatory memorandum to this bill tells us exactly that. It says:

In summary, a person may apply for a licence to:

• create human embryos ... and use such embryos.

What a cold, callous, unfeeling and ugly approach. Here we are creating human embryos for one purpose only, in the words of the explanatory memorandum—to use them. Of course the term ‘use’ is just a euphemism for destroying.

We are to legalise the deliberate creation of human embryos only to destroy them in the name of science and in the hope of some unknown miracle cure. To me, that is repugnant to every instinct within me. And the so-called safeguards are meaningless. Really, they are worth nothing. If it is right to destroy an embryo up to 14 days old, why not when it is 14 days and one second old or 14 days and one minute old—or, for that matter, 15 days old or, indeed, 20 days old? What is the moral, ethical difference? There is none other than that the embryo would simply be even further developed. There is no material, ethical or moral difference.

Once the destruction of human embryos, deliberately created for destruction, is justified then the 14-day limit will be seen as simply irrelevant and extended in the name of so-called scientific progress. As an aside, I note the substantial body of scientific opinion as to the absence of any likely benefits of human cloning and the waste of research funding, denying needed funds in areas where research has actually delivered—for example, with adult stem cells.

Before concluding, I will briefly deal with the issue of public opinion and some polls. As parliamentarians, we are engaged in the act of persuasion. All of us would have experienced walking into a meeting where people had a particular mindset; yet, after listening to the debate in detail, they have acted differently to that which was anticipated. Similarly, opinion polls can show us interesting things, but they do not tell us if people are able to be persuaded. And in any event, we, as parliamentarians, have a duty to make the right, sometimes tough and unfashionable decisions. We cannot outsource that duty to opinion polls or, for that matter, to Lockhart reviews.

In short, the bill fails on many grounds. No coherent case has been made as to why the change is necessary, especially given our unanimous view on cloning only four years ago. The moral and ethical issues are insurmountable if any intrinsic value is to be placed on a human embryo. Frankly, how a human embryo comes into being is irrelevant to its intrinsic value. Further, there is no real indication that this proposed experimentation will in fact lead to any medical successes. On all those counts the bill should fail.

I will close with a quote from a letter to the editor from this morning’s Examiner newspaper in my home state of Tasmania by Father Terry Southerwood of Launceston. He says:

Human life should not be created in order to be destroyed in research programs. Our whole Australian community will be grossly damaged if these bills are passed.

I fully agree with Father Terry Southerwood, and I will be opposing the legislation.