John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

In the few minutes left, I rise to oppose the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006. In my view, there are a number of flaws in this bill and in its capacity to do good for society, other than to line the pockets of medical corporations.

I have nine points of objection and they are: (1) the views espoused by Senator Patterson and other proponents of human embryonic cloning have the propensity to mislead and confuse us with the terminology and the issues and, with respect and in my opinion, this has contaminated the minds of the public, including us, the parliamentarians; (2) nothing has changed scientifically since this parliament voted to outlaw human embryonic cloning in the 2002 legislation, and I was on that Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry between 2000 and 2002; (3) elements of the Lockhart report are discredited, flawed in fact and it has reached biased conclusions; (4) the greater public interest of Australia opposes human cloning; (5) embryonic stem cell research has failed to deliver the promise for miracle cures and this is compared with the strident gains in adult stem cell research; (6) women are being exploited in the payment of money for their ova or human egg donation; (7) there are serious technical flaws in this bill, especially those provisions dealing with the so-called prohibitions; (8) there is more than one way to create a human embryo, not just by egg-sperm fusion; (9) in 2005 Australia signed a United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning and this bill violates that UN declaration.

When considering this bill before the House today, I am reminded of the words of Nazi German’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. He was attributed with saying, ‘Make the lie big enough, tell it often enough and people will believe it.’ What is this lie? The lie we are repeatedly expected to believe is that somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, is not cloning. We are further led to believe, wrongly, that there is a fundamental difference between a human embryo created by SCNT and a human embryo created by egg-sperm fusion. This lie, told often and consistently throughout this debate, has been recited, with respect, faithfully by Senator Paterson in her speech of 7 November 2006 on this bill. Senator Patterson said:

It is interesting that many of those against this bill base their objection to it on the status of an SCNT embryo being equal to that of an egg-sperm embryo.

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Looking back, I think that somatic cell nuclear transfer as a source of embryonic stem cells became an unfortunate victim of the fear and confusion about what cloning meant.

And later:

Cloning of whole human beings will continue to be strictly prohibited. Let me repeat that: cloning of human beings will continue to be strictly prohibited.

Senator Patterson speaks the lie loud enough and long enough to dupe the Senate. The lie is the expressed and implied assertion that SCNT is not cloning. We are told, wrongly, that SCNT is not the same as human cloning, which properly and exclusively means cloning from egg-sperm fusion. This mantra is—to use the words of Dr David van Gend, in his text Conscience versus Con Science, dated 30 August 2006—‘the great lie at the heart of the cloning debate’.

I put to the members of the House this afternoon this fundamental question on their knowledge of the substance of this bill: is SCNT technology cloning? The answer is yes. I quote from the text of Dr David van Gend, who in turn cites an article entitled “Playing the Name Game: Stem-cell scientists should not try to change the definition of the word ‘embryo’”, which was published in the scientific journal Nature:

Nature accused scientists of “playing semantic games in an effort to evade scrutiny” and restated the biological truth that the entity created by cloning was just the same as the entity created by IVF fertilisation:

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.

There is a famous reported legal case called Hedley Byrne v Heller & Partners [1964] AC 465. From this case the saying was coined ‘a burn is a burn is a burn’. This saying means that harm from a burn caused by a fire is the same as a burn caused by scalding water, by electricity or by heat induction. So, too, today it is put that a human embryo is a human embryo is a human embryo. Whether the human embryo is created by cell, sperm fusion, SCNT technology or other techniques, such as pathogenesis, the bottom line that members here must understand is that a human being is being created. That blastocyst, once created by cell-sperm fusion, SCNT or pathogenesis, has the potency to become a fully functional human being. That is the moral reality of what is being debated and voted on here today. This House, if it passes this bill, will permit the creation of human embryos for the sole purpose of harvesting body stem cells.

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