Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Senate is debating the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006. There are decisions that are made a priori—that is, before an action—and there are decisions that are made a posteriori—that is, after an action. If the waves of misfortune are to throw a person on the rocks where they have to deal with a pregnancy unplanned, that decision is after the issue, which is a posteriori. This debate deals with the full knowledge before fertilisation so it is a priori. So this debate is definitely not the abortion debate and we should not connect the two.

I refer to repeal of subsection 20(1) of the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002, and substitution that includes precursor cells from a human foetus. This subsection deals with the use of ovaries from aborted foetuses and, as such, brings forward the concept that an aborted child will have its ovaries surgically removed, with all the ethical connotations that has. Under extension of the 14-day rule, a person could be the grandchild or child of someone who was never born. However, this does prove that they were quite obviously alive. The quandary is, of course, about a person of full rights whose progenitor had none—in fact, who never took a breath.

This debate does more harm than any other to those suffering the afflictions of type 1 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injuries, because it distracts funds and resources from proven technology and advancements in adult stem cell technology and directs them to the hypothetical and acquisitive aspirations of predominantly pharmaceutical manufacturers.

How can you look a child in the eye and suggest you have a cure for something when you know you have not? Well, results would suggest that you are doing just that when you place hope in embryonic stem cell research that has not been proven in animals. The mirage of embryonic stem cell research has absorbed a budget of $3 billion in California, $30 million for the disgraced and discredited Professor Hwang in South Korea, and immense budgets elsewhere around the world—including, unfortunately, here, where the majority of $100 million has been allocated to the National Stem Cell Research Centre. The funding is there worldwide, with no tangible embryonic stem cell results. I do not think we should feel left out if we fail to catch up in the subsidisation of the non-delivery of embryonic stem cell extravagance.

As recently as last week a liver was developed by a team led by Professor Colin McGuckin, in Newcastle, England, using stem cells from umbilical cords. This is non-controversial, factual and current, and we are thankful that he was not distracted by the hypothetical results of embryonic stem cell research in this crucial development. The supposed benefits that have been inspired by research on embryonic stem cells—the treatment of type 1 diabetes, spinal cord injuries and a range of other maladies—are belied by the fact that embryonic stem cell therapies cannot even be proven in animals.

Professor Itescu, Director of Transplant Immunology at New York’s Columbia University Medical Centre states that much of the understanding pro-cloning advocates hope to acquire could come from animal work and that:

... returning to this approach would take all of the ethical drama out of the discussion and lay it back on strong scientific foundations.

That is, if we go back to animals, we can lay the scientific foundations that proffer the case of so many who support these bills. Surely this would seem the reasonable first step, unless there is another motivation as to why we wish to work on human life now. Another issue is that, on passing this legislation, we are agreeing with the argument that is put forward in the Lockhart report that:

... embryos formed by fertilisation of eggs by sperm may have a different social or relational significance from embryos formed by nuclear transfer.

That is stating that human life created by this technique has no rights because it has no social or relational significance. With regard to the word ‘may’ how can it be that it may have rights if its purpose is to be destroyed? Refugees have no social or relational significance. So are we by default now presupposing that they have no rights or have we come to the conceit that we can pick and choose our moral premises which can fluctuate as required from issue to issue? Do you have a basic right that others without fault do not have, even in this nation? If the embryo created was allowed to grow, would he or she be something akin to a slave, a person of no social or relational significance or would it be that a slave would have more rights because they may attain these rights whilst those conceived under this legislation would be defined as having none and no prospect of attaining any? Do we implicitly, by association in legislation, say that ovaries are now commercial property disassociated from the person and as property can be extracted from prisoners in China or aborted foetuses in Australia? These so-called ‘useful parts’ will be used in their thousands as test materials for the effects of drugs on human life.

Fast forward from 2002 to 2006 and we are now engaged in another stem cell debate but this time it is about deliberately creating new embryos by the method of somatic cell nuclear transfer, SCNT, or cloning to obtain their stem cells. All of the same reasons for lifting the prohibition on frozen embryos are being used again to argue for the lifting of the prohibition on cloning. Only this time we are told the impediment of tissue rejection can be solved through harvesting stem cells from a cloned embryo of the patient.

As the Lockhart review process was in its early stages, some politicians and members of the media began to talk about the need to legalise the process called somatic cell nuclear transfer as a new way of deriving rejection-free stem cell lines that could lead to the much talked about potential miracle cures. The use of such technical terminology had the potential to effectively expunge the words ‘embryo’ and ‘clone’ from the debate, sidelining opponents with ethical concerns. However, it soon became clear that SCNT was the same process used to create Dolly the sheep and numerous other animal clones.

To its credit, the Lockhart committee recognised that SCNT did in fact create a human embryo. Lockhart chair Loane Skene did not seek to hide this. On Friday, 20 October, she told the Standing Committee on Community Affairs inquiry into the legislative responses to recommendations of the Lockhart review:

Other people have said to us that what we are talking about today, a somatic cell nuclear transfer embryo, is better not being called an embryo. We did not shy away from calling it an embryo because it is conceivable, as happened with Dolly the sheep, that if that entity were put into a woman, after a lot of care, it could in fact develop into a foetus. So we did call it an embryo.

The only difference between Dolly the sheep and Lockhart style cloning was it would be illegal for the cloned embryo to be allowed to live more than 14 days and to be implanted in a womb. Unlike Dolly the sheep, Snuppy the puppy and Matilda the cow, Billy the human clone will never be born if the Lockhart recommendations are followed. For the first time in our history, we have proposed a law that creates human life and then mandates its destruction. To get around this inconvenient truth, Professor Skene says an SCNT embryo has a ‘different moral status’ from those created in artificial reproductive technology programs.

The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs majority report into Lockhart goes to great pains to distinguish between an egg and sperm embryo and an SCNT, Dolly style, embryo. While the words ‘embryo’ and ‘clone’ were allowed, other linguistic techniques are used in the majority report to set our minds at ease. We are asked to believe that there is a difference in the ‘intrinsic value’ between a cloned embryo and an egg and sperm embryo, justifying its destruction. We are asked to consider that an SCNT embryo is not ‘equal to’ a naturally fertilised embryo, that now we are differentiating between what is equal and what is not equal in human life.

Did the living Dolly the sheep have a different moral status from Mary’s little lamb because Dolly grew from a cloned embryo? Sure Dolly died prematurely wracked with arthritis and other genetic defects, but she baaed like a lamb, ate grass like a lamb and grew wool like any other lamb. Just because Dolly was disabled as a result of scientists messing with her DNA, does that mean she was of less intrinsic value, of different moral status or less equal to all the other little lambs?

History is littered with examples of relegating various genetic forms of human life to a subgroup of the species. Knowing from the cloned animal models that a cloned human is a real scientific possibility, if we then buy in to the idea that these clones are somehow less human than the rest of us, we have no choice but to be intellectually honest and accept the case for reproductive cloning. If the embryo created through SCNT is of less ‘intrinsic value’ and not ‘equal to’ an egg and sperm embryo, why should this parliament maintain a barrier to reproductive cloning to solve our chronic shortage of transplant organs?

Why is the line drawn at 14 days? It is only because it is ink on paper: we have said 14 days—why not draw the line at 14 weeks, 20 weeks or whatever level you consider relevant? Surely a foetus that develops from an embryo that is subhuman maintains that different moral status Professor Skene talks of. In calling for reproductive cloning, Melbourne’s Professor Julian Savulescu is just following through with the logical extrapolation of the ethical jump this parliament is considering. Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics he says:

It is morally required that we employ cloning to produce embryos or foetuses for the sake of providing cells, tissues or even organs for therapy, followed by abortion of the embryo or foetus.

Perhaps this is the ultimate form of ‘therapeutic cloning’. For those who cross the ethical Rubicon before us this week, the intellectually consistent position will be to join Professor Savulescu in saying it is not only permissible to clone embryos, grow them in a womb and then abort them for their tissues and organs, but it is morally required. At least the professor has the intellectual honesty and the courage to acknowledge that this is where his ethical position on human life takes him—a place we are all headed if we vote for this.

I asked a question of Mick Keelty, director of the AFP, in Senate estimates last week. Do we torture anyone and, if not, why not, as it could achieve attaining a great deal of information? The reason we do not is that, though the outcome could possibly be relevant, the process is anathema. Why do we get so shocked by the statements of Taj al-Din al-Hilali? We do not seriously believe that he has an intention to rape or that he is inspiring people to rape. His statement of culture is repugnant, as he diminishes our basic view on what we believe our value position in Australia to be. The action of rape is not required for the ethos alone to be repugnant. The fact that we are about to legislate the differentiation in the value of human life is repugnant to me.

What does the word ‘conservative’ mean? I always presumed it meant that caution should always prevail when manipulating the fundamental philosophical compass points in our society. Trying to avoid harm is the noble arm of where I believe conservatism in any party should be. Conservatism appears to have descended to mean a belief in fiscal rectitude. When we iron out all the social contours, is this what we are left with to inspire—a fanatical belief in fiscal rectitude? We should maintain the belief in the deeper philosophical guidance that precludes a change of our society that is unwarranted. As there has been billions invested elsewhere in the world to no effect in embryonic stem cell research, I think we can safely say that embryonic stem cell research in Australia is unwarranted.

That we are content with the status quo and are not willing to meddle with the known compass points if it affects the fundamental belief structure that underlines our current freedoms is, in my belief, the foundation of what we are as Australians. This is one of the last contours in Australian ethical debates and takes us to the position that an amorphous and nebulous paradigm of beliefs can sustain the strength of the nation in the threat of future cultural and ethical challenges. Nature abhors a vacuum, and when we legislate away our belief structure do not think for one moment that the position is final. New beliefs will take the place of our current lack of them and fanaticism will walk unimpeded into a new chapter of Australia in the next 50 or so years.

The call we have to make when removing our social and moral contours is: can we instil a belief in our nation, whose strength will be gained from issues such as fiscal rectitude? Will our evolved belief structure be strong enough to impede the growth in the dynamics of other cultures in our nation?

So to those among us here who pride themselves on social justice, I would love to see the passion that is so often extended to other issues delivered to inhibit the creation of stateless, valueless human life in Australia. I implore you to look at maintaining the wider sincerity to your defence of the rights of all Australians. If you believe in the equality of a person irregardless of age, race, sex, religion or other issues then how can you abscond from the defining of a relevant argument as to what stage in your life these inalienable rights descend on a person and why? This argument has been avoided in this debate like the plague: when do we attain rights? By endorsing this bill you acknowledge that there are those in our nation without rights, as there has never been given the clear argument as to why embryos are not human life.