Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

With the very limited amount of time I have left, I will start my contribution to the debate. I do not rise here tonight to give a scientific appraisal of stem cell research. I do not intend to give an exhaustive overview of the reams of technical information presented to me and my colleagues in the lead-up to this debate. I am certainly not an expert and I do not pretend to be. There are those eminently more qualified than I to provide such a critique. That is why in 2002 the government appointed the Lockhart committee to review the embryo research legislation. This committee of six leading ethicists, lawyers, scientists and doctors took written and oral evidence for six months from several hundred people. The review examined all aspects of legislation, in particular whether it was functional and meeting the research needs and public concerns. After its review, the Lockhart committee was satisfied that the existing legislation had achieved an appropriate balance between permitting medical research with spare embryos and embryonic stem cell lines while meeting community concerns by a strict ban on reproductive cloning.

However, the anomaly identified by Lockhart and addressed in this Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006 is the fact that the 2002 legislation allows for the creation of embryonic stem cell lines from fertilised human eggs but not when derived from an unfertilised human egg through therapeutic cloning. In other words, they are both human eggs which would never be implanted into a woman’s uterus for the purpose of reproduction, but one can be utilised and the other cannot.

This bill will allow the use of unfertilised eggs as well as fertilised eggs for the creation of stem cell lines. To me the crux of this debate is about balance—balancing the need of our scientific research community in its quest to find better ways of understanding and treating debilitating disease and injury and the hope this gives to literally hundreds of thousands of victims and their families with the need to protect the sanctity of human life. Nowhere in this legislation is there a suggestion that we should be relaxing the total prohibition on reproductive cloning—nowhere at all. This parliament has ensured that this is not negotiable.

The emotive arguments that I have heard that this legislation is leading us down the slippery slope towards the frightening prospect of creating half-man, half-animal beings should be left to the Hollywood scriptwriters. Just like the movie The Island of Dr Moreau, it is an outlandish sci-fi plot intended to scare us senseless but has no place in reality. Although I do not accept it was a possibility under the original legislation, I note any concern has now been put well and truly beyond doubt with the amendment passed in the Senate banning the use of animal eggs. The reality is Australia has one of the best if not the best and most ethically and tightly regulated research communities in the world. I for one cannot stand by and deny our best and brightest the opportunity to be leaders in the field of embryonic research.

There is still much we do not know about stem cells. However, what we do know is that the potential of both embryonic and adult stem cells needs to be investigated further. We already know that human adult and embryonic stem cells, due to their ability to replace damaged cells in the body, could be used to treat a range of conditions, including heart failure, spinal injuries, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease or other diseases that involve cell damage or loss.

It is true more work needs to be done, particularly in the field of embryonic stem cells. It will take years; I have no doubt about that. It may be a decade or more before treatments can be tested in clinical trials. I find it astonishing that opponents of such research use the lack of medical breakthroughs to date as one of the key justifications for not proceeding with this legislation. Instead of that being bandied about in this place as a reason not to proceed, I think the sooner we get started the better.

If that means I stand condemned, as I have heard others condemned, for holding out false hope to the sufferers of debilitating diseases or severe injury, then so be it—I stand condemned. I will not stand in the way of medical research that could one day provide a way to generate new blood cells for leukaemia patients, regenerate nerve tissue damaged by spinal cord injury, replace brain cells destroyed in Parkinson’s disease or stroke, or produce insulin-producing islet cells that are destroyed in type 1 diabetes. If there is a prospect of any or all of these things being achieved, then surely we as a society need to promote and support all forms of scientifically and ethically reputable research available.

As Professor Skene said in summarising her submission on legislative responses to the Lockhart review, we basically have two choices. We can say to our scientists, ‘We are going to stop you trying to find out anything at all,’ or: ‘We will regulate you. We will watch what you are doing with a transparent process—with licensing and reporting to parliament—and then we will see what happens.’

It seems to me that the doomsayers in the debate are the same as those who were vehemently opposed to the IVF treatment and the use of animal tissues in organ transplants. At the time of introduction, these techniques were relatively new and unknown. Today they are widely accepted and have become a standard feature in our medical landscape. Indeed, literally hundreds of thousands of Australians owe their lives to these groundbreaking advances in medical science. I could not imagine what it would be like to stand in the shoes of someone who suffers from motor neurone disease or quadriplegia, or what it would be like for strong, independent people who are struck down in the prime of their life by chronic disease or devastating injury to have to rely on others for the most basic of functions. As parliamentarians we have no right to rob these people and their families of hope.

Debate (on motion by Ms Corcoran) adjourned.

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