Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006 is the result of the review of the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 and the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002. The review was conducted by a committee of expert medical scientists and ethicists, and chaired by Justice John Lockhart. I record my appreciation here for the life and work of John Lockhart, whom I have known for nearly 30 years. He was a generous mentor when I was a young lawyer, and he and his wife, Juliet, who is here in the House today, were our friends and, indeed, my constituents.

John was possessed of a keen, clear and cool intellect. I cannot think of any lawyer more naturally gifted with a judicial instinct for objective analysis. Tragically, he died shortly after the report was completed, his life lost to a particularly rapid cancer. John Lockhart realised, as do honourable members, that this matter raises difficult ethical issues, with sincerely and strongly held views on either side. His report was a characteristically careful and lucid appraisal of a complex issue. I thank all of my constituents who contacted me about this legislation. Many have expressed strong views against it and many others have been equally strong in their support. I have taken all of their opinions to heart, weighing them very carefully in my consideration.

My starting point is at a bedside. It could be anywhere or at any time. Someone is suffering. They are in pain; they are dying. It could be our friend, our mother, our father or, God forbid, our own child. Few of us cannot recall moments like this; none of us can forget them. We reach out to the sufferer. Our very being yearns to make them well, but how helpless do we feel in the face of suffering we cannot relieve and diseases we cannot cure? What do we pray for? We pray, as we have always done, for a cure. Is there any higher duty or any nobler cause than the relief of human suffering and the curing of disease?

One of the strongest advocates of this bill is Professor Ian Frazer, the 2006 Australian of the Year. It was his work that led to the production of the cervical cancer vaccine, now on the PBS in the form of Gardasil. In time, his research will save the lives of thousands of Australian women and may come near to eradicating this type of lethal cancer in a country like Australia. Another advocate, and a member of the Lockhart committee, is Dr Barry Marshall, a Nobel Prize winner for his research which revolutionised the treatment of gastritis and eased the suffering of many people. These scientists and many others have a gift of healing. They support this bill because they believe its passage will enable scientists like them to make further discoveries in the cause of healing.

Much of this bill is uncontroversial. It continues the prohibition of reproductive or human cloning and it continues to prohibit the creation of a human embryo by the fertilisation of a human egg with human sperm for any purpose other than achieving pregnancy. As my allotted time is short, I will not canvass the whole of the statute but rather focus on what I understand is the key ethical issue, relating, as it does, to SCNT. The 2002 acts imposed a moratorium on SCNT which was to be the subject of the review. The Lockhart committee recommended that, subject to stringent safeguards, this practice be permitted.

The process of SCNT involves placing the nucleus of a somatic cell—this could be a skin cell—inside a female’s egg, an oocyte, that has had its own nucleus removed. The embryo is then stimulated to develop in vitro to the blastocyst stage, which occurs about five days after fertilisation. Within the blastocyst is a cluster of 50 to 250 cells known as the inner cell mass, which consists of embryonic stem cells. These embryonic stem cells would then be harvested for research and the creation of stem cell lines. The embryo, or blastocyst, as it is called at this point, is only visible under a microscope. It has no nervous system and it is best described as having only a highly theoretical potential for full development.

By saying the blastocyst has ‘potential’, I draw a distinction. The reason I draw this distinction is as follows: simply starting a human egg on a particular path, through either fertilisation or cloning, is a necessary condition for developing a human being, but it simply is not a sufficient one. A range of conditions must also be present. These conditions include successful implantation in the womb—and it should be noted that at least 40 per cent of embryos produced naturally within the womb do not implant.

Some people worry that this early embryo generated from SCNT may—and I emphasise ‘may’—have potential for life, but this has never been tested in humans after somatic cell nuclear transfer, and it never will be in Australia. The bill makes it an offence punishable by 15 years imprisonment to allow an SCNT embryo to develop for more than 14 days or to implant such an embryo in a woman’s womb.

But why do scientists want to create embryos by SCNT? Scientists have made extraordinary progress in preclinical research with embryonic stem cells. There are numerous examples now where embryonic stem cells have been used to treat illness in animal models of human diseases. The promising results in these preclinical tests are the first step prior to testing embryonic stem cell therapies in people with illnesses. For the first time in the history of humanity, we face the hope of treating a number of diseases that have previously been regarded as incurable. There will be hurdles and there will be challenges, but Australia society is endowed with great scientists who will work to overcome them.

However, there is one profound challenge that can only be surmounted by SCNT. An embryonic stem cell therapy is essentially a transplant and, like any transplant, the embryonic stem cells could be rejected. SCNT provides the hope of making embryonic stem cells that will be genetically identical to the person who is being treated. This has potential to overcome the risk that the embryonic stem cells will be rejected by the immune system, because SCNT ensures the embryonic stem cells will be genetically identical to the recipient. We therefore stand on the brink of a revolution in medicine—an offer of hope to those currently living; an offer of hope to people suffering from devastating disease for which there is currently no hope.

The ethical argument against SCNT runs like this: human life begins at conception—the fertilisation of the egg. There are no degrees of humanness, and from conception to death, from the tiniest embryo through to the end of life, there is no ethical distinction in the respect due to the human being. Accordingly, the destruction of the earliest embryo is equivalent to the destruction of any one of us. Against this, many would argue that, prior to the development of the nervous system, it is highly theoretical to contend that a tiny collection of cells perceptible only through a powerful microscope, lacking a nervous system—lacking, indeed, any differentiated cells—is a complete human being. Put another way: while these human cells are alive, can they be regarded as a human person?

It seems to me that our society has already reached a conclusion to the effect that an embryo at this very early stage is more in the nature of a potential than an actual human being and that the rights of this microscopic bundle of cells are not equal to those of a foetus, let alone a newborn baby. Our society supports, in every respect, the practice of IVF. What better example of science serving life than in enabling an infertile couple to conceive and bear a child of their own? Given that couples undertaking IVF therapy routinely create many more embryos than they could possibly use, the consequence of IVF is that many thousands of embryos become surplus and, if not used for research purposes, as was expressly authorised in the 2002 legislation, or donated, are allowed to die. IVF is now so widely used that three per cent of Australian children born this year will be the result of IVF. So how can we justify IVF but at the same time condemn somatic cell nuclear transfer? Of course, some people—perhaps they are the most consistent—condemn both practices. But the vast majority do not.

Recognising this inconsistency, some opponents of SCNT contend that, while IVF may be justified on a utilitarian basis—the good end of enabling the infertile to bear children overcoming the bad means of allowing many embryos to die—there is insufficient evidence that SCNT will deliver the promised research benefits and hence, unlike IVF, SCNT is a case where the bad means cannot be shown to lead to a good end. I find these essentially utilitarian arguments against SCNT unpersuasive. First, they fail to recognise the nature of scientific research. There are no guarantees as to what therapies research of any kind will deliver—except for this very certain guarantee: if you do not undertake the research then you are guaranteed that you will not advance medical knowledge at all. Secondly, there is progress being made with embryonic stem cells. As Professor Ian Frazer wrote to us recently:

It has been claimed that there have not been enough advances in embryonic stem cell research and SCNT to justify legislative changes. Recent results using stem cells include the generation of insulin-producing cells with the potential to treat diabetes, of cardiac cells which could be used to repair a damaged heart, of dopamine-producing cells to treat parkinson’s disease, and of retinal cells and spinal cord cells to repair a damaged nervous system.

Third—and this is perhaps the most significant objection—it is implied that we should wait until valuable therapies are developed in other countries, like the United Kingdom, the USA, Israel, Singapore, Belgium and others, where SCNT is permitted. This amounts to a free option. We can prohibit SCNT in Australia but nonetheless enjoy the benefit of any therapies which that research may produce. I recognise and respect the assurance of several members and senators who have said they would never accept a drug or a therapy derived from SCNT. However—and I say this without any hint of criticism—that is a position which few people will take when a loved one becomes ill or their own life is threatened and the only available therapy is one derived from scientific research of this kind.

In many societies around the world there are few rights accorded to the living. We must resist and challenge the way basic human rights are denied to so many of our fellow inhabitants of this fragile globe. We might fight for people with AIDS in Africa just as we must fight for people in Australia, where the AIDS infection rates in some parts of Sydney, including parts of my own electorate, are rapidly rising. The fight for human rights is waged with many weapons, but foremost in the armoury is medical science and the research that makes it possible.

The legislation and the debate which we have heard is a great example of a how a civilised and progressive society carefully addresses these important issues. I thank all the members and senators who have spoken on this bill, both for and against. I have learned an enormous amount from the words of all my colleagues. I particularly thank Dr Mal Washer, who pressed so hard for a conscience vote, and of course Senator Kay Patterson, who introduced this bill into the Senate.

In closing, may I remind honourable members of Gary Nairn’s very moving speech in support of this bill. Gary described how after his wife died from cancer last year—an ordeal both Kerrie and Gary bore with the greatest courage—he asked her oncologist what the parliament could do to continue the fight against cancer. The oncologist replied, ‘Put the resources into general research that ultimately can apply to a whole series, in the case of cancer, of different cancers.’ Gary saw this bill as enabling that kind of research, and so do I. I will support the bill.

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