Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006 that is being debated before the House is quite rightly one that has been categorised as being for individual members to exercise their own conscience and values on in judging whether it should be supported. From the outset, when this was first mooted to be moved as a private member’s bill in the other place, I made very publicly clear my view that it should be opposed. When we considered the recommendations of John Lockhart, I, along with others, supported the cabinet’s decision to reject them, particularly that recommendation with regard to therapeutic cloning. I should put on the record my admiration for John Lockhart and the work that he has done within his profession. In fact, I supported his nomination as one of the arbiters in the World Trade Organisation, and he did Australia proud in that position. He diligently went through the process of assessment in the task that he had undertaken in this regard, but I still believe that that recommendation was wrong.

When confronted with the sorts of decisions that are a part of this debate, I have always been a believer in the individual’s choice. In making that choice, you always reach back to your fundamental personal values that were often a part of your family upbringing and the environment in which each one of us was brought up. And that is certainly the circumstance in my case. I believe the object of this bill is morally wrong. It is an example of how good people can be seduced by the prospect of miracles into making terrible mistakes.

Four years ago this parliament passed the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act and the Research Involving Human Embryos Act. Those acts prohibit both reproductive and therapeutic human cloning. They prohibit the creation of human embryos except with the aim of achieving a pregnancy. They permit research to be carried out on excess embryos created through artificial reproductive technology. This bill would allow the creation of human embryo clones, but they would be marked for destruction after 14 days. This bill would create two classes of human beings in Australia—first, those embryos that were created through the normal process of procreation and birth, and, second, the embryos that were doomed not because of the risks involved in the pregnancy but because of this parliament’s decision to allow researchers to create them and then destroy them. All of those embryos are human, because human life begins at conception.

I am reminded of a novel called Never Let Me Go and a similar movie called The Island. The novel was actually nominated for the Booker Prize last year. Sometimes the best way that we can put our views into perspective is to see them mirrored in fiction. This novel tells the story of children who grow up at what appears to be an exclusive private school, but by the end of the book we discover that the children are clones and were created to be organ donors. There is even a euphemism for what happens when their last organs are harvested in this fictional book. They are not said to die; they are said to ‘complete’.

If we reflect on history, sometimes today’s fiction has a habit of becoming tomorrow’s reality. I am sure supporters of the bill may be horrified at some of the analogies and the graphic commentary that is being used in this debate. They would say that there is an enormous difference between cloned embryos that are killed at 14 days and living men and women, fictionally, that might be created and used to harvest organs. Maybe they are right, but the difference is only by degree—because if you believe in the fundamental principle that the human being is created at conception then it is only by degree. In some respects the fate of the real cloned embryos would be even worse than the fate of the imaginary children in that fictional novel. At least these fictional clones knew the feel of the sunlight on their faces and you could imagine that some of them were even able to escape.

This bill would inevitably open the way to even more experimentation and more radical technologies. It includes its own mechanism to generate pressure for more amendments, because it would require another independent review in three years time. In three years the changes in this bill will be seen as part of the legal landscape—as the basis for a review that would use the amended act as its starting point for making further amendments rather than looking at the original act and recognising that it was wrong. It is like a ratchet. Once you have agreed to experiment on excess embryos, it is not a huge step to agree to therapeutic cloning. Once you have agreed to therapeutic cloning, it is not that much of a leap to agree to reproductive cloning. Step by step, review by review, this parliament is in danger of passing laws that it would have rejected outright if they had all been introduced at the same time, in a relative sense.

The supporters of the bill argue that it would open the way to medical breakthroughs in the treatment of diseases like Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and maybe even some cancers. I am a survivor of cancer—one of the most invasive cancers that is known to human beings. But, through medical research and science as we know it today, we are finding cures for many of what have historically been incurable diseases. Our government has announced that we are going to introduce one for cervical cancer to the broader population as soon as possible. But science as we know it today is doing that.

It would be wonderful to be able to cure all of these diseases, but I believe the cost is too great if it can only be done by experimenting on cloned embryos and then destroying them. It would introduce a great and devastating sadness into the heart of our health system. Everyone cured with these treatments would have to live with the knowledge that their health was only possible because of the deliberate creation and then destruction of human lives.

I have no doubt, knowing all the people involved in this debate, that the supporters of this debate mean well. They are good people and want to achieve the worthwhile result of curing terrible diseases. We all want that outcome. But I believe their good intentions have led them to a terrible mistake—as I described it, a sort of ratchet mechanism that keeps dragging us forward and doing more and more and more, and ending up moving towards that fictional outcome written in the novel I mentioned. We must not attempt to achieve good ends through what I believe are immoral means. I urge the House to vote against this bill. I, too, will support the mooted amendment if it comes forward. But I will be voting against the substantive bill.

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