Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to express my views on the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006. I listened to the member for Moncrieff, who clearly indicated, as many members in this House have done in the process of this debate, that it is not an easy matter to deal with. There are some very significant questions that have to be asked by each member and it is not easy to reach an unequivocal conclusion about the best way to deal with this particular matter. I say from the outset that I respect the views of others, provided there is not a sense of righteousness about one’s view over another and provided members accept that these are fundamental questions and that therefore the divergent views expressed in this place are to be respected. The issues of human life—birth, reproduction and death—are the issues that exercise the minds of parliamentarians most strenuously and are the issues on which we diverge from each other most violently. Human intervention in the creation and the ending of life presents us as legislators with a terrible array of scientific, moral and ethical concerns. Advances in scientific research keep altering the shape of the arguments and we find even the safest of our convictions tested.

There are many features of this bill which even opponents of its most controversial aspects should accept. For instance, the bill continues the current ban on the trade of human eggs, sperm and embryos. It also alleviates some of the unintended consequences of the original bill. The Lockhart review, for example, found that the 2002 legislation in practice prevented research into improved methods for achieving pregnancy in ART clinics and that that was impeding training and quality assurance activities at these clinics. This bill allows procedures to test human eggs for maturity and to test egg and sperm viability—procedures which were permitted prior to the 2002 legislation. The bill also improves current licensing arrangements, ensuring vacancies on the National Health and Medical Research Council licensing committee are filled. It provides for the inspection of non-licensed facilities, ensuring laws and guidelines are complied with. It imposes significant crime penalties for breaking the law.

The bill allows two new activities not previously allowable but recommended by the Lockhart review under very strict conditions. The first is the use of embryos generated during the process of IVF that are unsuitable for transplantation, usually because of genetic flaws. If not used for research purposes, they would be destroyed. The second procedure not previously permitted, but recommended by the Lockhart review, is the use of human embryos created by somatic cell nuclear transfer and other techniques that do not involve the fertilisation of a human egg with a human sperm. Such embryos are to be created only for the development of specific embryonic stem cell lines, as is currently legally permitted in countries including the United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan and Singapore.

This, of course, is the most contentious part of the new legislation, and some members consider it necessary to reject the whole bill on this point. I believe the most fundamental issue at stake here boils down to the question of whether the embryo is a person; in other words, it is about the moral status of what is being created or destroyed. We therefore need to be particularly clear about what is meant by the term ‘embryo’. Indeed, this bill goes some way to providing further clarification on this important point.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer is the scientifically appropriate term for the procedure under dispute. Briefly, it involves removing the nucleus, which contains almost all of the genetic material, from the egg cell and replacing it with a nucleus from a somatic cell. The egg and its new nucleus are then induced to fuse and to develop into an embryo. Therefore, the egg is not fertilised in the usual sense. Because the nucleus contains most of the DNA, the embryo is genetically identical to the person from whom the somatic cell was taken; hence, the term ‘clone’.

An embryo for the purpose of this legislation is an entity created by a sperm fertilising an egg. Such embryos cannot be created for anything other than IVF purposes. Under the licence, the surplus embryos can be used for stem cell research. In that regard, nothing in this bill changes the current law. The term ‘embryo’ has been clarified, though many still have difficulty with the association of the word ‘human’ when applied to therapeutic cloning. After much consideration, I think many of the objections to therapeutic cloning for the production of stem cells fall into the trap of anthropomorphism—that is, they ascribe the characteristics of human beings to things that are not.

When we use the expression ‘human being’ we refer to something that is like us. What we mean when we use the expression is coloured and informed by our experience—that is, our experience of being human adds up to our concept of what the word means. We are simply not capable of disentangling this sense of ourselves from our concept of the word, and we often project this experience onto other things that seem like us—for example, animals. In this way, we often fall into the trap of supposing that other living things think and feel in the same way that we do, which is not the case.

In the same way, if we give a multicell cloned human embryo all of the conceptual and sentimental associations of a human person, then we are projecting adult sentiment on to something to which it does not belong. An embryo is a member of the human family, but Harvard Professor DW Brock notes:

... this is not sufficient to give it the same moral status as humans who are incontestably persons. That is because the moral status of human persons does not derive simply from their species membership. Rather, it must be some properties of humans that endow them with personhood and in particular make it seriously wrong to kill them.

Why, for instance, do some people make no distinction between an adult human being and a multicell embryo, affording it all the rights of the adult person when they do not afford those rights to, say, an unborn animal of much greater maturity? That is indeed a controversial point but, for me, the underlying distinction between those two living things, as made by opponents of therapeutic human cloning, is fundamentally faith based. It is personal religious conviction. The right of people to draw conclusions on the basis of faith should be respected and honoured, but the issue then is whether that decision, derived from a particular faith, should apply to all other citizens in this country.

The reason I say it is a faith based instead of reason based to draw that distinction—that is, the distinction between a multicell human embryo and a multicell animal embryo—is that the former is made in God’s image and the latter is not. That is a significant difference. While I sincerely respect the religious convictions of other individuals, I do not think those convictions should be the basis upon which a responsible government or a society as a whole should act. This danger can be illustrated with a pertinent question: whose vision of the sanctity of human life should we accept—the one that dictates that full human personhood begins at conception, or the views held by certain Christian denominations, Jews, Muslims and others of the gradual evolution of personhood over time?

If one were to study the history of Catholicism—I, myself, being Catholic—or if one were to study the way in which the debates about human life entered the discussions of the theologians of the time, including the famous St Thomas Aquinas, who did not agree that human life began at conception, one could see that there has been a long history of debate about these matters. In the modern context there are new matters that confront us but, essentially, the issue that has been forever debated has been about when life commences. Indeed, there are a multitude of views not only amongst non-Christian faiths but amongst Christian denominations.

This shows that we should not simply accept without question the position that condemns the use of therapeutic cloning on the grounds that it is the deliberate killing of another human person. Even among religious people, whose views are often cited in this debate and characterised as unambiguous, opinions may differ greatly. I refer to the member for Lalor’s comments in her contribution to this debate. I think we need to recognise with great courtesy and respect that there are those who cannot support this legislation; in turn, they must acknowledge that in this pluralist society there are many views on these issues and that ethics is not the purview of any one group.

Australia has an excellent national legislative regime in this area that covers all assisted reproduction therapy and research activities in Australia. The enactment of this bill will see this regime backed up with strong oversight and penalties. The regime is also backed up with a series of guidelines addressing issues of informed consent, institutional ethics and the ethics of working with human subjects. The amendments to this bill in the Senate will mean that there will be an opportunity to examine the current state and territory laws governing donation of human tissue for use in research.

Finally, because this is an area of policy where the terms and concepts, not to mention public opinion, are changing all the time, the bill allows for another review to report to the Council of Australian Governments and to parliament within four years. The promise of the science is too great. I listened intently to a number of speakers who in providing their contribution to this debate made comment about family members and friends who are ill and who could be assisted by the enactment of this legislation. In that sense it is a very emotional matter to be debating for all people, whatever their views.

But as I say, the promise of the science is too great and the ethical difficulties too ill-defined—for me, at least—or too narrowly held for us to condemn out of hand the use of therapeutic cloning for the production of embryonic stem cells. In truth, too many lives can be saved or dramatically improved by the use of this revolutionary branch of health sciences for me as a legislator to stand in the way of its development on the grounds that it offends some religious convictions.

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