Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Those are all the amendments, as I understand it. I just want to ask one or two more questions about the legislation as a whole before we come to a final vote. The issue I flagged in the second reading debate that is still causing me some consternation is that embryos created through cloning techniques are seen as having a different value from embryos created through sperm and egg. I understand the rationale behind the Lockhart committee coming to this view.

Over the dinner break, I reviewed the different arguments and views that the committee heard from people and why they perceive embryos created through SCNT as being intrinsically different. These embryos are not just created differently; they are seen as intrinsically different, and so people feel differently about them. In that context, they are being created for a different purpose. I can certainly understand that.

I have been asking people about this issue and many of them feel that the entities created through the SCNT process are fundamentally different. The Lockhart review used terminology to describe how SCNT embryos had a different social and relational significance from other embryos. In the majority report of the community affairs committee, clause 3.31 states:

While respecting the individual’s right to see the SCNT embryo as equal in status to that of an embryo produced by egg and sperm, it is intrinsic in the recommendations of Lockhart and the Patterson Bill that the continued prohibition of the creation of an embryo by egg and sperm for any purpose other than ART demonstrates the difference in the intrinsic value of the egg and sperm embryo.

In the context of what is envisaged by the legislation before us, that does not hugely concern me. However, incorporating a principle that one embryo has a lower intrinsic value than another as a consequence of its method of creation and the purpose for which it was created is a principle that causes me concern in terms of how it might be applied in the future. I wonder whether Senator Patterson could respond to that.