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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Thursday, 1 April 2004) . . Page.. 1573 ..

beginning of the development of technology for IVF there was no possibility of spare embryos—it was so complex; it was so unsuccessful. Basically, as technology has improved we have now ended up with what are called “spare embryos”. Then we get a utilitarian argument around “Well, they are spare, so we might as well use them anyway.”

Getting back to the initial point, as I said the moral argument for supporting abortion is essentially based on the relationship between the embryo and the woman in whose uterus the embryo is situated. There is a very important difference in value between allowing an embryo that is not needed for assisted reproductive technology to die or using it for research and the argument against abortion. Although at this stage the law does not allow embryos to be created specifically for research that is, undoubtedly, the pressure that will develop. It is a somewhat arbitrary line anyway to not accept the creation of embryos specifically for destructive research but to accept the use of embryos once they have been created. What we are being asked to support today is quite another matter compared to the questions of life when they are about a woman and the embryo or foetus she is carrying. We are looking today at the relationships between embryo and corporation/scientist/researcher/pharmaceutical company.

The question is whether we can confer rights over life of the embryo to these players. My conclusion is that we cannot. Further, it is dangerous for our society and could easily lead to further gradual erosion of long-held understandings about tampering with human life—whether it is cloning or eugenics or something we have not even thought at this time. As well, I want to make it clear that there are real issues about the nature of scientific research and the fact that it has been so underfunded and, as a result, so commercialised. The public interest is certainly not the driving factor and we cannot necessarily rely on institutes/ethics committees to hold the public interest or humanitarian interest uppermost. Commercial pressure is a very powerful force and is a guiding force for most research.

The Greens in the Senate proposed a national stem cell bank along the lines of the UK model in an attempt to ensure that scientific inquiry is done in the public domain and so has a better chance of being for public benefit rather than public benefit skewed by commercial interest. There may, for example, be more money in cosmetics than in lifesaving or significantly life-enhancing treatments, particularly where the conditions are related to lower socioeconomic groups. This is the sad possibility and reality quite often in our market-driven society.

I also have real concerns about freedom of information in this legislation. The importance given to commercial confidentiality is worrying. The definition of commercial confidentiality at section 8 is not tempered by public interest. It means “information that has a commercial or other value that would be, or could reasonably be expected to be, destroyed or diminished if the information were disclosed”. The offence of disclosing confidential commercial information has a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

There is one person nominated by the Territory who will be told what is going on in each licensed research endeavour. Other than that there is no reporting requirement. There will be an annual report at the Commonwealth level, which will leave out any commercial in-confidence material, but there is no direct reporting to the territory, to this

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