Page 945 - Week 03 - Thursday, 3 April 2008
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A similar set of proposals has been debated in the federal government and voted on in other state parliaments around Australia. Wherever these issues have been put up for legislative debate, both major parties have quite rightly chosen to treat this as a conscience debate where MPs are not bound along party lines. It should not be forgotten that the 2006 Senate vote on the latest amendments came down to a difference of a single vote. So this has been a contentious issue right across the country, where it has been debated.
That said I respect the motives of other MLAs who take a different approach to my own in this debate. I do acknowledge there are distinguished scientists on either side of the debate who can be cited in support of the opposing arguments. Some of us have life experiences and personal values that compel us to treat human life as supremely valuable and we take a precautionary approach to the destruction of human life and the creation of hybrids which fuse human and animal genetic material. Others may have experience of loved ones who have suffered from disease and sickness and therefore feel prepared to contemplate experimental efforts to find a cure, even if there are some ethical trade-offs.
The legislation in this area has been in considerable flux since 2002, just as scientific research in the field of human genetics is in a constant state of evolution. Scientific research in this area is in the relatively early stages of developing and new techniques for reprogramming cells are only in the very early stages of discovery and refinement. This is one reason that makes me particularly concerned that we should proceed with caution in our regulatory regime and not shatter long-held ethical standards unnecessarily.
We should remember that in 2002 there was a unanimous vote in the federal parliament to ban the creation of cloned human embryos. Members and senators from every corner of the political spectrum categorically and emphatically stated that human cloning was unconscionable, dangerous and unethical. Beginning six years ago, federal and state parliaments created a uniform legislative arrangement that only allowed research on surplus human embryos that had been created originally for IVF purposes. We were told that this was the high ethical watermark and that human cloning was a Rubicon that would never be crossed.
Even then, a great number of parliamentarians from across the political spectrum voted against experimentation on IVF embryos. There were two bills, one on human cloning, where all MPs unanimously were opposed to it, and another on IVF embryos, where MPs were split on whether the destruction of human embryos in the name of research was ethically conscionable. We are being asked today in the Assembly to take another step in this debate and cross a very serious threshold. That is where I am sure a number of MLAs, those MLAs who are opposed, have some concerns.
Parts of the bill are not particularly troubling, such as clarifications of the definitions about when an embryo forms and increasing some of the custodial penalties to make penalties consistent. Other fundamental changes in this bill are of such concern that I find it difficult to vote for this bill, and that is why I will not be supporting it, even if amended about the edges.
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