Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This week the scientific eyes of the world are focused on Australia as we grapple with a question as important to them as it is to us. That question relates to whether we are to take a very important scientific step forward which will keep Australia at the forefront of stem cell research. For American scientists, a pandemic of politics was enough to cause some of their eminent researchers to abandon their laboratories and their lives’ work. As Christopher Scott revealed in his book Stem Cell Now, it took scientists with a steely resolve to remain and to try to find a way around the barriers.

Without doubt, in Australia we have some of the most talented researchers supporting this new and exciting scientific work: Nobel prize winner Ian Frazer, eminent international scientist Sir Gus Nossal, Professor Bernie Tuch and the very talented young scientist Dr Megan Munsie, who conducted the first proof of the principle of therapeutic cloning in an animal model in 2000. Each of these eminent men and women, together with Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, unanimously agree on the fundamental issue that we are debating here today—that is, that our country’s researchers should be given the scientific support and legislative protection needed to take the next step in stem cell research.

This is not a simple issue. It is not an easy issue. I certainly respect those in the chamber who have a different view. Few of us are scientific experts. Notwithstanding my five years as an employee with CSIRO, many of us need to rely on others to fully inform us and to clarify our thoughts as we work through the difficult issues arising from this bill. However, one thing is for sure: the Australian community is ready to take the next step. More than 80 per cent of them, when asked in a recent Morgan poll whether they approved of stem cells being extracted from human embryos to be used in the treatment of many diseases and injuries, answered with a resounding yes. In fact, 87 per cent of those aged between 14 and 17, and 25 and 34, answered yes. They were, of course, answering a hypothetical question because we currently do not carry out research on embryos unless they are surplus to IVF requirements and have the appropriate family consent. Until now our scientists have not created fertilised eggs specifically for research purposes, unlike at least seven other countries where this work is now undertaken and where, unfortunately, some of our scientists are now working.

I am unashamedly a supporter of the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006. Over the past year, like so many witnesses to both the Lockhart committee and the Senate inquiry, I have benefited from medical research which has developed new treatments for illnesses and diseases. However, there were witnesses appearing before the committee who were less fortunate. Their appearance and their contribution on the debilitating injuries and chronic diseases that have affected them were particularly courageous and especially moving.

This is, of course, a debate about an important scientific principle and whether our scientists are responsible enough to be given the task of unravelling it—of building a new research platform in this country, equally as important as the discovery of penicillin, the transplant of organs or the mapping of the human genome. I ask the chamber: is there any recent evidence of scientific misadventure in Australia under our framework of careful regulation and with our scientists, like most of those around the world, driven by a fine balance of curiosity and acting for the greater good of mankind? Sadly, some opponents of this view have allowed the debate to be largely taken over by interest groups and the religious, often generating more heat than light. To suggest, as some of them have done, that supporters of this bill cannot at the same time be Christians is deeply offensive to both those who support and those who oppose this legislation. In any case, different religions have diverse views about when life actually begins. It is not any group’s exclusive territory. It is not a matter that is in the exclusive realm of any of them.

There are other key arguments associated with this bill, and I propose to deal with each of them very briefly. First, the slippery slope: the suggestion that animal-human hybrids will be the next inevitable step, that babies will be born on laboratory benches or that, as a newspaper advertisement disgracefully claimed last week, there will be ‘cloned foetus farming’. This is abhorrent. These baseless accusations against our scientists are, of course, easily answered. The proposed legislation allows only for the use of the outer case of an unfertilised embryo to create stem cells; there is no sperm involved. The process is not the same as IV. This legislation will ensure that any of the illegal scary science remains a criminal offence punishable by a lengthy prison sentence.

Then there is the ‘adult versus embryonic’ argument about which of the stem cells will have the greatest potential for stem cell application. The truth is: nobody is sure. This journey of scientific discovery has just begun and it would be quite irresponsible to rule in or out either pathway. To borrow the words of Sir Gus Nossal, we must ‘leave all the cell doors open; the two lines of research should progress together’. The British Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse told me in a recent interview: ‘It would be utterly irresponsible not to investigate both options when the research is at such a tentative stage with very significant potential.’

Another line of opposition suggests that embryonic stem cells have been oversold as a possible remedy for a range of diseases and illnesses, and that those who support their use are filled with hype and hubris and giving hope to the hopeless. How dare we tell thousands of Australians who suffer from inherited diseases that they know will be their grandchildren’s tragic legacy that they have no hope and that they should live each day in the knowledge that their disease will have no early cure. How dare we say that even a glimmer of hope, however fleeting, should be denied to them. Or worse still, how dare we say that, if a treatment or therapy is developed in Singapore, they should move there, or to Britain or Sweden or California, so that the treatment can be delivered to them there—at whatever cost. What audacious arrogance; what selfish simplicity. How pathetically patronising it is to these debilitated people. If we deny hope, why do any medical research? Surely to offer hope is to offer the chance to look forward with desire and reasonable confidence and it should never be denied.

Last but not least is the argument that the process embodied in this bill creates life to destroy life. As I said earlier, this is not an egg that becomes a baby as we know it. There is no sperm involved and the law will not allow the egg to be implanted. It cannot by law be allowed to exist for more than 14 days. Let me emphasise here the questions asked by one of the team at Stanford University working on stem cells. He said:

Do you truly believe that these eggs, which despite dire predictions have not been developed into a human, are the same as a living person, deserving of the same level of treatment? Do you truly believe that these eggs, which cannot be used after 14 days and are banned from implantation, enjoy a human status?

I do not. I accept the human status of an IVF embryo because it could develop into a baby, but I also accept the right of those families to determine the future of these IVF embryos. Informed consent is as important to those men and women as it is in the transplant issue.

Since Christiaan Barnard’s groundbreaking transplant work, thousands of lives have been saved or improved by the generosity of individuals and their families who have taken part in this selfless program of organ transplantation. This ethical issue we are debating today is, to me, incomparable with that. To me, an egg, which is not fertilised by sperm, will not be implanted, will not be used after 1 4 days and has not been scientifically demonstrated as being able to become a human baby, does not enjoy the status of a living human being.

Finally, let me briefly canvass the utterly abhorrent suggestion that women will ‘sell their fresh eggs’ or the even more objectionable suggestion that ‘female cadavers will have their eggs removed’. These arguments are as patronising as they are specious. They suggest that a woman has no control over her body, is driven by money and greed, will willingly take medication to stimulate egg production in return for payment and will jeopardise her health and potentially endanger her life. There will be no opportunity for this. The law will prevent it in this country and those opponents well know it. Moreover, these accusations are deeply offensive to women—indeed, they should be to men too—and it is particularly unfortunate that they were put to some of our most eminent research teams to try to substantiate a very offensive argument. Surely we think more of the intellectual capacity of our scientists and of our female population.

In conclusion, can I once again make my position clear: this bill, carefully developed by colleagues Kay Patterson and Natasha Stott Despoja, and reflecting the sensible recommendations of the eminent group known as the Lockhart committee, is worthy of my support. Let me quote the words of that very courageous Australian Dr Paul Brock who in evidence to our committee said:

Can you imagine looking my 90-year-old mum, my 43-year-old wife and our 15- and 11-year-old girls in the eye, and looking me in the eye, a bloke who 10 years ago was running around like a lunatic, playing golf, playing cricket, playing the piano and doing all the things in my life, now reduced to two fingers that move a bit, a brain that still works, a voice which obviously works too much and telling us it is evil?

I cannot, I will not, and the Senate must not.