Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

As I mentioned last night when I began my remarks on the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006, there are of course differing scientific opinions in relation to this issue. But there are also other issues of real concern, such as the sourcing of human eggs for cloning purposes. This was canvassed by the Senate Community Affairs Committee, and I refer to the evidence of Katrina George, Director of the Women’s Forum, an independent think tank on public policy on women’s issues. Katrina George’s evidence was as follows:

What we can see from overseas is that it is impossible to obtain near sufficient supplies of ova without offering women some sort of commercial incentive ... If cloning is opened up in this country, it then creates a demand for ova and, as I said, overseas experience would suggest that that can only be satisfied by paying women to undertake these risks.

Ms George went on to outline the concerns of the Women’s Forum about the health implications for women in relation to the harvesting of eggs and the practice of hyperstimulation of the ovary in order to obtain a sufficient quantity of eggs. This is an aspect which is just one of many to be considered in the debate on this bill.

Another aspect concerns the Lockhart report recommendation which allows somatic cell nuclear transfer using animal eggs. The Southern Cross Bioethics Institute submitted to the Senate committee that creating hybrid embryos not only is an ethical Pandora’s box in its own right but also rests on a naive assumption that inserting the human nuclear genome into an extraordinarily complex structure with very different cytoplasmic machinery to that in the human egg will produce a comparable result. To quote the institute directly:

We can only guess at the possible result of transferring human nuclei and animal oocytes.

Of course, this begs the question of how stem cell lines derived from human and animal DNA may affect subsequent therapies for human beings. We have seen in the past the use of animal parts in relation to operations involving the treatment of human beings, but this is something quite different. Unfortunately, there is no strong scientific evidence to support such a proposal as this, which is a radical departure from previous research methods. This is a matter of great concern and raises not only scientific questions but also ethical ones.

Another concern I have with the bill concerns me in my role as Minister for Justice and Customs, and that is the recommendation from Lockhart which was to do away with the export regulation of embryos. In the review, the recommendation was made because the current export approval process was considered too cumbersome and stressful for users. I would ask senators to cast their minds back to how this came about. Four years ago when we debated this issue there was concern that embryos could be exported from Australia for any purpose at all, such as cloning. We have seen overseas some clinics which have engaged in this, or attempted to, and of course once an embryo leaves Australia we lose jurisdictional control and we do not have the safeguards which people would point to that exist in Australia. This bill has a provision which would do away with that regulation of the export of embryos.

Can I say at the outset that I take issue with the Lockhart report over its comment that this process is too cumbersome and stressful. In my time as minister which has covered the period in question, of the 55 applications that I have received, 54 have been approved and one has been withdrawn. I have received no complaint from anyone—no complaint at all in relation to the process or to delay. In fact, 51 of the 54 applications which were approved were done so within 14 days of my receiving them from the department. I would suggest that the time frame is not as cumbersome as was made out. The former Mr Justice Lockhart met with me on 8 December 2005, a short period before the report was published, and to his credit he published my view in the report. But I do think that the committee placed too much emphasis on just a couple of submissions which maintained that the process was too cumbersome and stressful. As I say, I have not received any complaints and I believe firmly that we have processed the applications in appropriate time for the purposes for which the applications were made. I also remind senators that the regulation in place states that:

Subject to this regulation, the Minister may grant a permission if the Minister is satisfied that:

the embryo will, if necessary to achieve the pregnancy of a relevant woman under a relevant agreement, be implanted in the relevant woman; and

either:

the agreement was made, or negotiations for agreement were entered into, before 27 March 2003; or

(ii) the agreement does not provide for any valuable consideration; and

(c) if the prospective mother has died at the time of the application—the application and the agreement are consistent with the advance directive mentioned in subparagraph 6(d)(ii).

That provided for some surrogacy arrangements that were based on commercial grounds which were in place at the time. It was as a result of a negotiation between a number of senators who were involved in this debate, and I believe it has worked well. The provision in relation to the permission that is sought requires that the person who is seeking to export the embryo provide a statement to that effect, a statement from the ART centre storing the embryos in Australia and the overseas ART centre that will be facilitating the pregnancy. I would suggest that that is not a cumbersome process and it is one which gives assurance to the wider community that an embryo is being exported from Australia for the purposes of IVF or to achieve a pregnancy by way of some agreement for surrogacy.

The current export regulation assists the individual who is travelling overseas to achieve a pregnancy, but it also restricts the use of the embryo, which could be for any purpose whatsoever overseas. That was a debate we had four years ago, and I believe that in the circumstances that export restraint should be maintained. It does not interfere with the desires of those who travel overseas and want to achieve a pregnancy but, at the same time, it provides us with an assurance that we cannot have the export of embryos willy-nilly for any purpose overseas, which could well include human cloning. I draw that to the attention of senators. I believe it is another flaw in this bill but, as I said at the outset, there are other considerations. Recently I read these remarks:

Human beings are increasingly considered a simple product of nature and thus susceptible to being treated as just another animal, which leads to a weakening of moral and ethical norms.

I think at the end of the day we must keep that maxim in mind when we deal with these issues. No-one in this chamber is against scientific research for the betterment of human beings and no-one in this chamber, I believe, would unreasonably stand in the way of such research. But we do have to consider the merits, scientifically, of any proposal such as this, as serious as it is, and also the ethical aspects which apply to that. After all, what we are doing is looking at changes to the law in a short space of time where just four years ago we drew a line in the sand and said that therapeutic cloning was not to happen. Four years later we find a proposal that would reverse this statement. That is why it is such a weighty consideration for all of us in this debate today. I am opposed to this bill for more than one reason. As I have outlined, there are scientific and ethical issues involved. There are aspects which involve doing away with any constraint over the export of embryos overseas and there is also the issue of women’s health in relation to the harvesting of eggs. I am opposed to this bill for all those reasons.