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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Thursday, 1 April 2004) . . Page.. 1570 ..

The Warnock report in the UK saw day 14 as the day that this sort of activity should stop, because after day 14 the identity, personality and characteristics of the individual are confirmed. I could understand it if somebody wanted to make an attempt and say, “Let’s do this up to day 14—two weeks.” But I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a logical reason as to why we would use eight weeks or less than eight weeks. Perhaps the minister can answer that. If you can accept eight weeks, you can move it back to two weeks or one week or you can move it forward to 10 or 20 weeks. What is it about eight weeks? Again, we have missed the fundamental question: when did the life begin? Perhaps someone can alert me as to how we determine where life begins. It is a question I ask often in these debates, but it is a question I never get an answer to.

If there is no answer to the question, then the precautionary principle alone would say, “Do not go there.” I think the whole question of ethics and ethical issues would say, “Do not go there.” I recall driving into the Assembly one day when the Australian centre for ethics was having a discussion about what is proposed. The proponent was saying, “Well, before you get to what might happen and the “possible, probable or perhaps” potential of the research, let’s discuss the ethical question: what are we destroying. Is it this loose conglomeration of cells, as some would contend, or is it something beyond that? If you cannot answer that question, then we should not be beginning to go down this path.”

I think there is some appeal in this sort of research. We have all seen the 60 Minutes programs. We have seen the Christopher Reeves who are begging for this sort of research to occur so that they might regain what they once had. But we have to balance the question: is the destruction of a human life worth that cure? I do not think we have had that argument. Some of the experts are saying, “Hang on! Maybe adult stem cells will provide us with the answers.” Adult stem cells have provided us with a number of answers. “They may be all we need to do this research.”

Members would recall that I moved a motion in the Assembly for the establishment of an umbilical cord blood bank, but that was defeated. There are some very special and unique cells in umbilical cord blood that may be used for this research, but we will not make an effort to store that sort of material here in the ACT. I think that is a shame. Opinion is split between a number of experts. No-one can definitively say, “If you give me this, I will find a cure for Parkinson’s disease” or, “If we do this, I will have a cure for Alzheimer’s” or, “If you do this, I can cure cancer.” There are a number of people who are cautioning us and saying, “Don’t be fooled.” I will refer to what an expert in Alzheimer’s disease—Professor Colin Masters from the University of Melbourne—said in his submission to a Senate inquiry. He said:

I have been concerned that advocates of embryonic stem cells as a therapy have created false expectations in the mind of the general community.

That concern was supported by the Director of the Children’s Medical Research Institute, Professor Peter Rowe. In talking of this case about Alzheimer’s disease he said that to say that you will cure Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease by putting in a few cells is a joke. Professor Peter Silburn, representing Parkinson’s Australia, gave the warning that there is no evidence that embryonic stem cells will help the motor

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