John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

I have waited for a bit today to get on the speakers list for the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006, so in rising now I take the opportunity while I can. This is both a scientific and ethical debate. It is the intersection of the desires of science and scientists and the dignity of humanity. Scientists will always press their research to the limits of current knowledge and beyond. If they did not do this then many of the basics of human life today would not be at our disposal. However, all of what the scientists do should and must be constrained by ethical values.

The legislation before us seeks to allow the development of cloned human embryos for research purposes. I stress the words ‘cloned’ and ‘human’ quite deliberately. The subsequent purpose or use of a cloned human embryo cannot give any justification for the initial action. No matter how seemingly well intended the subsequent purpose or use might be, the initial action in creating the cloned human embryo crosses fundamental ethical lines. The fact that a human embryo is created by somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT—cloning—is beyond doubt. For, if the created embryo under this process were not human, it would rank the same as any other cloned embryo. It would be of little or passing interest to scientists. But, as I have said, that is not the case: it is of prime importance for research purposes and, if it is not human, what is it?

As Dr David van Gend said in evidence before the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs in Melbourne on Tuesday, 24 October 2006, at page CA104:

It is an embryo. An egg is a cell in a female body that contains half our genetic material. It is a piece of us. An embryo is a self-contained, self-directed living entity that controls its own future. Given the right environment, as the Lockhart review admitted, the cloned embryo can develop as a normal embryo to the foetal and live birth stage. There is no dispute on that. It has not been tried yet but it has happened in animals: Dolly the sheep, Matilda the lamb, Snuppy the puppy and so on. The process proposed by this legislation is exactly the same as what created Dolly and the other animals. Therefore you are dealing with a human entity which looks and behaves like an embryo; therefore, it is an embryo.

But today we have legislation that crosses a new threshold. It would permit scientists to create human life but to destroy it for research purposes. This legislation advocates a brave new world and, given the general abhorrence expressed previously on using human life destructively for research, why shouldn’t that abhorrence be maintained now? There is no reason whatsoever as to why it should not be.

In 2002, both houses of the Australian parliament unanimously rejected all forms of human cloning—that is, reproductive and therapeutic. At that time, neither senators nor members of the Australian parliament sought to allow therapeutic cloning and ban only reproductive cloning. The ban was absolute against cloning. Nothing has changed since then to warrant a change from the 2002 position. The same ethical constraints apply to cloning now as did then. What has changed is the use of language surrounding the debate, but nothing else. Dr Brigid Vout said in evidence before the Senate community affairs committee in Sydney on Monday, 23 October 2006, at pages CAl8 and CA19:

... whether that cloned embryo is then used for therapies or whether it is in fact nurtured and brought to birth—is where we come up with these two terms: ‘therapeutic’ and ‘reproductive’ cloning, respectively.

The quote goes on:

So the use of terms ‘reproductive’ and ‘therapeutic’ cloning has largely been to dress up something which the scientific community is aware that the public does not like. The public has deep-seated concerns about this extreme manipulation of procreation and the uses to which these embryos would be put.

At that same hearing in Melbourne, Dr van Gend tabled a copy of the Nature journal, 7 July 2005, in which an article condemned the International Society for Stem Cell Research under the heading ‘Playing the name game’. It went as follows:

It is true that embryo is an emotive term, but there is little scientific justification for redefining it. Whether taken from a fertility clinic or made through cloning, a blastocyst embryo has the potential to become a fully functional organism. And appearing to deny that fact will not fool die-hard opponents of this research. If anything, it will simply open up scientists to the accusation that they are trying to distance themselves from difficult moral issues by changing the terms of the debate.

Ray Campbell, the Director of the Queensland Bioethics Centre, an agency of the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane, said in evidence before the same committee, the community affairs committee, in Melbourne on Tuesday, 24 October, at page CA112:

We know it is cloning; that is what produced Dolly and started this whole debate. Somatic cell nuclear transfer is the technique of cloning; that is what it is.

Cloning, whether to create embryos for destruction in research or for implantation to lead to birth is still cloning. Neither language nor semantics can disguise this fact. Having crossed the ethical line, where to next? As Mr Mimmo from Don’t Cross the Line said in evidence before the community affairs committee in Sydney on Monday, 23 October 2006, at page CA23:

The point has been made at this table by others that, having developed the technology and the knowledge—this is if it ever comes to fruition in bringing about a cloned embryo—why does it make sense that we should stop at 14 days? Why doesn’t it make sense that science suddenly says, ‘Look, we’ve developed the technology and we’ve developed the information and we just need to go to the next step’—a perfectly logical set of events that will present themselves. The people who said four years ago that we will never go from here to cloning are now saying, ‘Why shouldn’t we go to cloning? The same set of principles will apply if we develop the science any further, so why shouldn’t we go to reproductive cloning? Why shouldn’t we harvest organs that are made, as distinct from stem cells?’

So where does the scientists’ appetite begin and end? The prospects are frightening. This quantum leap—and that is what it is: it is a quantum leap in research—is being advocated well in advance of similar research being done on cloned animal embryos. Some scientists are therefore asking for the freedom to pursue this research on relatively weak grounds purely and simply because they want to go down this path. Bad science cannot justify this freedom, even if it may be regulated by a government authority.

This debate has quite wrongly been portrayed as a debate about the efficacy of adult stem cells versus human embryonic stem cells obtained from excess IVF embryos. That is not the case. This is a debate where my colleagues have to consider giving scientists the right to cross a major ethical line and allow the cloning of human life for destructive research purposes. That is the quantum leap never before given. What took place in 2002 was access to excess IVF embryos, and that battle is over and done. That is not on the table here today. However, this legislation advocates crossing a major ethical line. It is not a religious line, although it may well be embraced by some people’s religions; it is actually a values line. It is about the value that you place on human life—the dignity of human beings. I say that this is going just that bridge too far. It is a quantum leap across an ethical line which is too daunting indeed; and the legislation, in my view, should be defeated.