Page 992 - Week 03 - Thursday, 3 April 2008
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There is widespread international agreement on the prohibition of cloning human beings. The international position expressed in article 11 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights 1997 states:
Practices which are contrary to human dignity, such as reproductive cloning of human beings, shall not be permitted.
This bill retains the existing prohibitions on activities such as placing an embryo clone in the human body or the body of an animal; importing or exporting a human embryo clone; creating a human embryo by fertilisation of a human egg by human sperm for a purpose other than achieving a pregnancy in a woman; creating or developing a human embryo by fertilisation of a human egg by human sperm which contains genetic material provided by more than two persons; developing a human embryo outside the body of a woman for more than 14 days; making heritable alterations to a human genome; collecting a viable human embryo from the body of a woman; creating or developing a chimeric embryo; developing a hybrid embryo before 14 days; placing a human embryo in an animal, a human embryo into the body of a human other than into a female reproductive tract or an animal embryo in a human; and importing, exporting or placing in the body of a woman a prohibited embryo. They are the prohibitions under this bill.
The bill does enable certain types of research involving embryos to be permitted under the approval of and in accordance with a licence issued by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the rigorous regulatory framework established by the original legislation for research involving excess ART embryos. The bill modifies the existing regulatory framework to allow for the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer, often referred to as therapeutic cloning, and contains provisions on licensing arrangements under the authority of the NHMRC in relation to excess assisted reproductive technology embryos, human eggs and their creation or use of other embryos.
In summary, a person may apply for a licence to use excess assisted reproductive technology embryos; create human embryos other than by fertilisation of a human egg by human sperm and use such embryos; create human embryos by a process other than the fertilisation of human egg by human sperm containing genetic material provided by more than two persons and use such embryos; create human embryos using precursor cells from a human embryo or a human foetus and use such embryos; undertake research and training involving the fertilisation of a human egg up to but not including the first mitotic division outside the body of a woman for the purposes of research and training; create hybrid embryos by the fertilisation of an animal egg by human sperm and develop such embryos up to but not including the first mitotic division, provided that the creation or use is for the purposes of testing sperm quality and will occur in an accredited assisted reproductive technology centre; and create hybrid embryos by introducing the nucleus of a human cell into an animal egg and use of such embryos.
In no circumstances can any embryo be developed outside the body of a woman beyond 14 days. The implantation of human embryo clones in the body of a woman for the purposes of reproduction also continues to be absolutely prohibited.
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