Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

In addressing the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006 today, whilst I will speak of a personal decision and from a personal perspective, I will not be speaking on the basis that I expect to benefit personally from the passage of this legislation or the research that will come from it over the decades ahead. I do, though, speak on the basis that I sincerely hope that the lives of my children and their children, and of my children’s friends and loved ones and their fellow Australians, will benefit from this legislation gaining passage through this House and from the cures to diseases and disabilities that may come from it.

Australia is a diverse society with widely held views of an equally wide variety and within those varieties of views we also see a large variety of beliefs—a fact often acknowledged and rightly lauded for giving this country the cultural richness which we all enjoy. It is therefore no surprise in a moral debate as important as this that there are many and varied views and opinions on what the House should decide.

Some Australians believe that life begins with the creation of an embryo and have a moral objection to therapeutic cloning. Others believe that life does not begin with the creation of an embryo and they do not have an automatic moral objection to this proposed legislation. Yet another view is that an embryo not from an egg fertilised by a sperm is not a traditional embryo but a cellular extension of the donor’s DNA that was never destined to be implanted and become a human being.

Looking around the House here today and having talked to my friends, constituents and colleagues on the issue, I know that the views held are wide ranging and often differ greatly even between those of the same religion. One belief is not morally superior to another. They exist together, side-by-side, in Australian society. There will never be full agreement in our society on when life begins or, indeed, on how it begins. For this reason, I do not agree that a certain type of medical research should be described in black-and-white terms as immoral simply because it does not fit the moral beliefs of some Australians.

However, one moral value which I believe is universally held by all Australians is that we have a responsibility to care for the vulnerable, the sick, the disabled and the elderly in our society. These are fundamental Australian values—indeed, they are universal human values. So, where medical research has the potential to alleviate human suffering and save lives, I believe it is difficult to justify a ban simply because of the perceptions and views of some in our society. That is not to say I do not respect the moral views of those who have objections to this legislation on moral grounds; I do respect their views. But their views are just one part of the community attitudes on this matter.

I firmly believe that we cannot justify a continuing ban on research which has shown such promise in animal studies in treating diseases and physical incapacities such as diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, retinal blindness and spinal cord injury. It is just potential, and it may be many years before we see treatments for humans, but it is potential that, to my mind, is becoming too great to ignore.

Rather than a ban, what is justified in the light of the moral objections of some Australians is to replace a ban with tight regulation. That, in essence, is what the Lockhart review committee recommended and it is what Senator Patterson has drafted in the bill before us. I believe it represents a conservative and appropriate response to a complex medical and ethical issue. As research scientist and writer Dr Elizabeth Finkel said recently:

The role of government then is not to take sides but to arbitrate. Instead of a sledgehammer ban, the law should be crafted into a fine regulatory tool. Where there was wide community consensus, as in the repugnance towards cloning for reproductive purposes, the report said the ban should remain. But where the community was divided, as it was over the potential medical benefits of therapeutic cloning, the brick wall should be replaced by a hurdle—

a significant hurdle.

Individual research projects should be evaluated on a case by case basis, by ethics committees and a government licensing committee. Some proposals would fall by the way-side, others might make it over the hurdle.

Some opponents of this bill have attempted to argue that we do not need to go down this path—that we can sidestep the difficult ethical issues surrounding the therapeutic cloning issue and just focus on finding cures from adult stem cell research. However, I do not believe that that is a realistic alternative. No politician or medical researcher could say with any certainty which line of stem cell research—be it adult, embryonic or any other—will produce cures, because science in this area is in its infancy.

It was only in 1998 that medical researchers isolated human embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to turn into other cell types, otherwise known as ‘cell plasticity’. Given that, in medical research terms, eight years is a very short time period, it should come as no surprise to those who follow science that there are currently no approved medical treatments from this research—and the story is the same for research from adult stem cells. Contrary to the claims of some that adult stem cells have produced treatments for over 65 diseases, the Lockhart review found that there were no approved medical treatments based on cell plasticity either. And what leading medical researchers believe at this point is that adult stem cells do not have the same ability or potential as embryonic stem cells to make virtually any cell type in the body and to self-renew indefinitely.

Medical researchers are optimistic about the potential of therapeutic cloning because it could allow them to make cells from a patient with known diseases—for example, Parkinson’s disease or motor neurone disease—and create a stem cell line on which to study the disease and to test new or improved drugs. Researchers also believe that, in the longer term, it may be possible to use therapeutic cloning to make cells that are matched to individual patients, reducing problems of immune rejection with future stem cell and tissue therapies. It is just potential and, in many cases, will be decades away, but we should allow our medical researchers to explore this potential under an appropriate and strict regulatory framework.

At this stage, no-one knows whether it is adult or embryonic stem cell research, including therapeutic cloning, that will prove the most useful and effective in treating different diseases, but in keeping all research paths open we are more likely to identify the best mechanisms to reduce human suffering and to improve quality of life. It is my firm belief that we should never turn our backs on the potential to save a human life or to substantially improve the quality of life of someone with a serious illness or disability.

The defeat of this bill may not affect the lives of some Australians, but it will have a potentially devastating effect on other Australians and others worldwide. If the ban on therapeutic cloning is not overturned, though, the research will continue overseas—in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Singapore, Israel and China—with varying degrees of regulation and ethical standards. It will continue with the help of Australia’s world-leading medical researchers, many of whom will no doubt leave these shores in frustration at not being able to compete and collaborate with their colleagues overseas. It will simply remove an opportunity for Australia to play a pre-eminent role in the regulation and conduct of this type of research.

One day these Australian medical researchers working overseas may produce cures for a range of life-threatening diseases, based on drugs and therapies derived from therapeutic cloning. What then will Australia do? Will we legislate to block Australians from accessing that treatment and cure derived from therapeutic cloning that may save their lives or the lives of their children and grandchildren? More unrealistic still, will we legislate to prohibit Australians from travelling overseas to access these treatments? Or, if we are to be morally consistent, under a ban on therapeutic cloning would we legislate to prevent all Australians from accessing these treatments? The truth is that we would never do that. No democratic parliament on earth would ever consider such a thing.

In Australia, where we value the care of the vulnerable, the elderly and the sick, we would never deny such treatments to our citizens. But, having blocked the research on moral grounds, we would then be forced into dealing with the approval and subsidisation of treatments derived from therapeutic cloning and using those treatments in Australian hospitals and clinics. We would then be forced to accept the right decision in order to save lives.

A bigger issue is the one raised by the previous speaker—that wealthier Australians will be able to travel overseas and receive these treatments, while Australian doctors try to catch up and gain the knowledge that they need to treat Australians here. In fact, most Australians—our constituents—will be faced with the dilemma of waiting for Australian medical research to catch up to the rest of the world when these cures finally become available. I think it was best summed up by Barry Marshall, the winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. At the Press Club, he said:

It does not really affect my life if there is no stem cell research in Australia. If our young scientists all leave for Singapore, if Australians always must wait a few extra years after everyone in the United States and Britain already have a new treatment for, let’s say, diabetes. I can always get on a plane and pay thousands for some new treatment or cure in California but most people can’t afford that kind of expense in Australia.

To my mind, the risk we run if we vote down this bill is that people will suffer and die from diseases because they could not afford the expense of travelling overseas for treatment.

It was also mentioned that whether or not Australians choose this treatment is up to them. They can choose not to, and I respect that choice. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have maintained their religious opposition to many medical treatments and continue to do so. We should, as we do, allow Australians to opt out of treatment, but we should not allow those same Australians to deny the rights of others to opt in. Australia has shown over the years that the best way to handle medical advances is through regulation, not through prohibition. We did it with genetic engineering, organ transplants and IVF. The result is that we have saved and created lives, and we have offered people real opportunities for better standards of living.

The Lockhart review recommendations, embodied in Senator Patterson’s bill, represent the latest example of how to deal with medical advances. We owe the Lockhart review committee our thanks for the intelligence and courage they showed in addressing such a difficult issue. I had the honour of meeting with the late Justice John Lockhart in September 2005 as part of his committee’s consultations. It was one of those days when the House was busy and there were other pressing issues, and I just wish I could have spent more time with him as he explained where the committee was garnering its information from on the many views. The thing that struck me the most was his intelligence and his integrity, and his respect for the variety of moral views on this issue within the Australian community. We all know he died a short time after that, unfortunately, and he will not see the fruits of his work dealt with by this parliament.

If we look at the Lockhart review and the guidance that it gives us, if we look at personal beliefs such as the Christian beliefs that many in this House hold and if we think about what would be best to do in the future, more so than now, for our fellow Australians, then we need to listen carefully to the many points of view that this debate has brought forward but focus on three areas: our responsibility to care for the vulnerable, the sick and the elderly; the loss of some of our world-leading medical researchers who may be lured overseas if they cannot conduct research here; and the consequential impact that that will have both on the ability of Australians to access this sort of treatment and on the time it takes before that treatment is widely and freely available in Australia.

In short, what we are dealing with in this legislation is the opportunity for a better life for our fellow Australians, our children and our grandchildren. This is for all Australians both present and future. So, for the sake of all Australians who might one day benefit from this medical research, I urge members to support this bill.

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