Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to add my remarks to this debate on the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006. I thank all members who have made contributions on this subject. It is a difficult area. It is one which exercises our intellect, our wisdom and our conscience. I appreciate the warmth and generosity of all members when they say, disagree as we will, that we respect each other’s opinion. I foreshadow amendments to prevent the creation of a human embryo using eggs from an aborted female foetus.

This bill has already succeeded in its passage through the Senate—it is a reverse bill in that sense—although I note that the original bill has been amended to take out the prospect of human-animal hybrid embryos being created. The bill was sponsored in that place by Senator Patterson and her original intent to allow human-animal hybrid embryos has now been prevented. Nonetheless, I believe that the successful passage of this bill through the House of Representatives will be our shared shame. I indicate that I have grave reservations about the moral direction of this bill and I cannot vote for it. This bill goes against what I believe about human life and what my constituents have been consistently telling me. It is against my conscience and I firmly believe that no good can come of it.

There is nothing wrong with research and there is absolutely nothing wrong with science. Indeed, I come to this place with a scientific background as a science graduate and, in a former profession, a teacher of science. It is highly commendable that anyone would want to pursue an agenda which they believe will find better medical understanding, treatment or even a cure for disease. It is commendable because relieving the suffering of fellow human beings is something that we do well. It is a noble human quality to seek to bring relief and a better life for others. Because research is a speculative exercise, scientists will naturally want to push the boundaries of what is ethically permissible, but at what cost?

There is no scientific inquiry which does not run the risk of ethical concerns. Many in this place have in the past expressed outrage at the scientific research by Japanese scientists on whales. No-one can call into question the validity of the science, but we all know that the science is ethically very questionable. Many in this place express outrage at animal testing. It is perfectly valid science with perfectly valid scientific outcomes in terms of, for example, understanding chemical toxicity on humans, but scientific inquiry is not the only test. As we know, good science must be matched by good ethics to be acceptable to a reasonable person.

I have heard many claims about the potential benefits of the research that we are debating. My colleagues have forecast cures for a range of diseases. I too have a heart’s desire to see a cure for disease, particularly cystic fibrosis. It is a disease affecting one in 2,500 people and is the most common life-threatening genetic illness affecting Australian children. It is a killer of young people. I have a young friend who lives with the condition and I ask myself often, ‘What would I be prepared to do to fight for her life?’ We can do walks, raise money, pray, lobby for medicines and still, like others in this place, I too feel totally inadequate at my own inability and powerlessness.

We as lawmakers have a responsibility to do all that we can to support the reasonable expectations of families all around Australia to help researchers with the tools that they need to find cures if, indeed, those cures exist at all. We should not lose sight of our additional responsibility to uphold ethics which value all human life and respect the dignity of even seemingly insignificant embryos, which, of course, all of us once were. As human beings, we need boundaries to declare what is acceptable and what is not. Within the bounds of acceptability, we say to our researchers: ‘Go for it. Research to your heart’s content.’ Then there is a line, and we say, ‘Do not cross.’ Even this bill, as much as I disagree with it, has clear boundaries within it. That boundary seems to be constantly on the move. Where that line should now be is the point that we are debating today.

There is a long list of genetic diseases for which we all long for a cure. I do not want to hear any more of the nonsense that I heard last night from a person who said that those who do not support this bill care less about curing diseases and, additionally, that they ought not to be entitled to the benefit of any medical breakthroughs which might result from this research. I would put such statements in the same category as those of the minister in the Senate who said that ‘no religion has the right to seek to have its views legislated’. I could say that atheism has no right to have its views legislated, but that is a fairly unhelpful statement. The fact is that these are unbalanced and unhelpful views and I am alarmed to hear such statements being made at all.

But it is interesting, isn’t it, that the very people who denigrate a conservative position on this awful bill and attempt to prejudice those who live by faith are the very same ones who are in fact being the most extreme and, if I may say, fundamentalist in their own positions. For example, nothing could persuade the proponents of this bill to even take out the provisions which allow a scientist to extract the ova from the ovaries of an aborted female child for the subsequent creation of a living human embryo which will, in turn, be destroyed by a deliberate act. All of these quiet conversations, reasoned debates and even proposed amendments have been met with solid and arrogant resistance.

The title of this bill is totally misleading and disingenuous. The bill is wrongly titled ‘prohibition of human cloning for reproduction’. Human cloning for reproduction is already prohibited under Australian law. In fact, the bill that we are debating today does not prohibit anything. The bill allows research which is presently not allowed. To be honest, the bill ought to have been titled: ‘A bill to allow human cloning and the creation of human embryos for research’. So from the outset it is clear that these are weasel words even in the title—the first line—of this bill. Cloning was prohibited as recently as 2002 following agreement at the Council of Australian Governments and the unanimous votes of both this House and the Senate resulting in the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002. Also, the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002, introduced during the same debates, resulted in the prohibition of any activity which resulted in the creation of an embryo—a human life—for anything other than achieving a pregnancy in a woman.

Isn’t it interesting that the then minister for health who moved both of those bills, Senator Patterson, is the same proponent today for a bill to allow human cloning as well as, I might point out, the creation of embryos for purposes other than for achieving a pregnancy but, indeed, for destructive research. It is the same proponent. I remind the House of Senator Patterson’s own reassuring and, at that time, persuasive words during her second reading speech in 2002, when she said:

I believe strongly that it is wrong to create human embryos solely for research. It is not morally permissible—

this is her judgement—

to develop an embryo with the intent of truncating it at an early stage for the benefit of another human being. However, utilising embryos that are excess to a couple’s needs after a successful implantation is a very different matter. I believe it is disingenuous to suggest that approving this research will open the door to further killing of living human beings when the Prohibition of Human Cloning Bill 2002 bans the creation of a human embryo for a purpose other than achieving a pregnancy.

Her impassioned and persuasive voice of 2002 echoes still and condemns the bill before us now.

I say again that the most appalling aspect of this bill is the proposition that licences may be issued to authorise the creation of a human embryo using precursor cells from an embryo or foetus. This technical term ‘precursor cell’ is defined in the existing legislation as a cell that has the potential to develop into a human egg or human sperm. In plain terms, the proposal is that a human embryo could be made using eggs taken from an aborted female unborn child. I say again: the proposal before us tonight is that a human embryo could be made using the eggs taken from an aborted female unborn child. I do not think that that sits comfortably with people in the community.

Research on this technique was described by Israeli scientists in 2003. They took a slice of ovarian tissue from each of seven aborted baby girls and conducted successful experiments in maturing eggs from this tissue. The baby girls had been aborted at between 22 weeks and 33 weeks gestation. It is generally anticipated that eggs could only be derived from baby girls aborted late term in pregnancy. The method of abortion would also have to result in the foetal body being delivered intact and as near to alive as possible in order to harvest the ovarian tissue while it was still fresh.

The Lockhart review in its report produced no scientific rationale for its recommendation 26, which advanced this proposition. Nor could the members of the committee supply any reasons for it in answer to questions during the Senate inquiry. Indeed, it seems to have been included in the recommendations and, indeed, now in this bill as an afterthought—and, may I say, a very ill-considered one. The Senate rightly removed from this bill the abhorrent provision that human-animal hybrids could be created using animal eggs and human DNA. Irrespective of the view on the general principles underlying this bill of my colleagues, friends and fellow members of this House, we ought at least to be able to find a consensus on removing this provision which I have described tonight.

During the committee stage of this bill, perhaps tomorrow or the next day—whenever it occurs—I will be moving an amendment that will give the House the opportunity to remove the even more abhorrent provision that I have described. If left as it stands, this provision would allow a human embryo to be created as a deliberate act of will by a scientist from the eggs of a second or third trimester aborted baby girl. I challenge each and every one of my colleagues from all parties to consider the prospect of returning home to their electorates next week to say that they did not take the opportunity to remove this worst aspect of an already flawed private member’s bill. To me, this amendment is a no-brainer and ought to be supported by every member. I do sincerely hope that that eventuates.

It has to be said to everyone listening to this debate that this bill will allow, under the sanction of Australian law for the very first time, the deliberate creation of human life in the laboratory for the express purpose of destroying that human life. The bill says that human life can be created by any means possible, including by the joining of a sperm and an ova and, worse, by a method of cloning which would create an embryo which could just as easily be implanted into a woman and grow into an exact copy of you or me. For anyone, cloning is a bridge too far. It ought to be a bridge too far for both the Christian and the atheist. It is something which was not countenanced as possible as little as four years ago. Even the proponent of the prohibition bill in that year indicated that it was not appropriate, that it was not moral. Yet that selfsame person is promoting this bill today, and many people who predate my time in this place, having once voted in solidarity unanimously across both chambers of this great parliament to ban human cloning of all kinds—both therapeutic and reproductive—today are revisiting this question. We ask ourselves time and time again: what has changed? The science has not changed; the attitudes of individuals have changed—and for that only the individual can give account.

In closing, creating life in the knowledge that it will be destroyed is always wrong. It can never be made right, no matter what hope is being promised by scientists and politicians. So I am aware of my duty. My conscience is clear. I oppose this bill and I hope that it fails; I pray that it fails—not for a lack of compassion or a shared desperation for those who want better treatments and a better hope for the future for people who are doing it tough. I oppose this bill with all of my heart because I know that there is no reconciliation between the false hope being offered and the unprecedented abuse of the scientific power to give life and to take it away. I thank the House.

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