Australia Lifts Ban on Human Cloning
Pastor Dale Morgan
Australia Lifts Ban on Human Cloning*
Nov 07 5:25 PM US/Eastern
By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press Writer
CANBERRA, Australia
Australia's Senate narrowly voted to end the country's four-year ban on
cloning human embryos for stem cell research, ruling Tuesday that the
potential for medical breakthroughs outweighed moral doubts.
The decision _ a rare conscience vote in a country where lawmakers are
expected to follow the party line _ sets the stage for the ban to be
lifted entirely. The measure now goes to Australia's House of
Representatives, but lawmakers had expected the Senate to pose the
biggest hurdle.
The Senate voted 34 to 32 to allow therapeutic cloning, which involves
removing the nucleus of an unfertilized human egg and adding DNA to make
it grow in a lab dish.
Scientists had been lobbying for lawmakers to relax rules on stem cell
research and allow therapeutic cloning of embryos for medical research.
Since Parliament passed Australia's first laws on stem cell research in
2002, scientists have only been allowed to extract stem cells from spare
embryos created for in vitro fertilization.
Sen. Natasha Stott-Despoja, a member of the opposition Australian
Democrats, praised the vote. "We have done the right thing and created
the opportunity for great research to be undertaken," she said.
Opponents warned that the technology could be abused and lead to human
cloning and the creation of animal-human hybrids.
Sen. Grant Chapman, from the ruling Liberal Party, likened research that
would be allowed under the new legislation to human experiments
conducted by Nazi Germany.
"Experiments which subject the zygote, or embryo, to any significant
risk are the ethical equivalent of the infamous medical experiments that
we're inflicted on the unwilling and uninformed victims in Nazi death
camps," Chapman said.
Scientists hope stem cell research will eventually lead to treatments or
cures for diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, as well as spinal
cord injuries, diabetes and arthritis.
The potential scientific benefits and the U.S. debate about stem cell
research ahead of midterm elections caught Australian media attention
last month when Rush Limbaugh, the conservative commentator, accused
Michael J. Fox of faking the severity of his Parkinson's disease in a
campaign ad for Democrat candidates who support the research. Fox said
he was neither acting nor off his medications.
President Bush and others have argued that the promise of stem cells
should not be realized at the expense of human life, even in its most
nascent stages. In 2001, Bush pledged to limit federally funded
embryonic research to the stem cell lines that had been created by the
time and in August he vetoed a bill that could have multiplied the
federal money going into embryonic stem cell research.
In Australia, Liberal Sen. Alan Ferguson spoke about his daughter's
multiple sclerosis diagnosis 13 years ago, and said therapeutic cloning
would give hope to people like her.
"I would never forgive myself if I voted against this bill and did not
give medical research that extra possible opportunity to succeed in
finding a cure for some of those terrible diseases which are now
incurable and which afflict so many of our population," Ferguson said.
Fellow Liberal Sen. Guy Barnett said he would vote against the bill
despite suffering type-1 diabetes _ one of the diseases that researchers
hope to cure with the technology.
"The promises of cures are false and flimsy hope," Barnett said.
Prime Minister John Howard was part of a Cabinet decision in June that
the law should not be changed, but he agreed to allow a rare conscience
vote on the issue _ instead of requiring lawmakers to follow the party
line _ after government lawmakers threatened to revolt.
Australian Cabinet members, including the prime minister, hold seats in
Parliament.
Howard, an ally of Bush who sent 2,000 Australian troops to the Iraq
war, said Monday that he was undecided how he would vote when the issue
came before the House of Representatives, where he holds a seat.
"On one hand, I want to do everything possible to help relieve suffering
and to leave open the hope of cures of terrible, debilitating
illnesses," he said. "On the other hand, I do have concerns that this
may in some areas be a step too far and I am still weighing the matter."