As we prepare for the final debate on the cloning Bill, we hope that some MPs will have read the full ‘case against cloning’ which we sent to them in two stages last week, and which can be viewed on the website at:
http://www.cloning.org.au/Documents/final%20cloning%20appeal.pdf
We can still have some (desperate) hope that our MPs will focus clearly on the ethical issue at stake, and that their conscience will be able to crawl out from under the heap of con science that shonky scientists and moronic media have dumped on them.
As I told one journalist today:
"We think the vote will not be as close as in the Senate, but that if MPs get focussed on the single ethical issue at stake - whether it is morally permissible to create new human embryos solely for research - then anything can happen. If they remained fooled by Dr Mal Washer's nonsense statements that cloning does not create an embryo (since there is no sperm involved - even though Dolly was created without sperm!) then of course they will support the Bill.
"And this inhuman Bill based on misguided science will be passed - a Bill so ugly that it allows for the creation of embryos from aborted baby girls. And science, which should serve our humanity, will have made us all less human."
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
IT'S OFFICIAL: MAJORITY DON'T SUPPORT CLONING EMBRYOS FOR RESEARCH
Alan Baker, President of the Family Council of Queensland, has done a masterful and timely job of clarifying public opinion on cloning. And, as expected, most Australians - being the decent coots we know ourselves to be - oppose cloning embryos for research. Of course, if they are asked sly misleading questions that hide the ethical issue of creating a human embryo solely for research, then the outcome is different. But if the question is unambiguous, the answer is unambiguously 'no thank you'.
So our Representatives can vote against cloning knowing they are representing not only what is ethically right, but what is democratically desired.
We thank Alan Baker for permission to post the letter the FCQ sent today to all Federal MPs.
MOST AUSTRALIANS AGAINST HUMAN CLONING
An analysis of the opinion polls
28 November, 2006
Dear Member of the House of Representatives
While you no doubt will vote on the Patterson Bill to legalise human cloning according to your conscience, I write to inform you that the majority of Australians are opposed to the cloning of human embryos as a source of stem cells.
The most recent valid research into public attitudes to human cloning was carried out by Sexton Marketing Group for the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in January 2006 through a national telephone poll of 1200 people. It found that only 29% of respondents support the cloning of human embryos as a source of stem cells, while 51% opposed the cloning of human embryos for stem cells.
The question asked was: “Do you support or oppose the cloning of human embryos as a source of stem cells?” When it was clarified with respondents in a subsequent question that these embryos would be destroyed in the process of obtaining stem cells from them, opposition to this increased to 55% (43% of respondents were not previously aware of this fact).
This research was reported in an article in The Age by Michelle Grattan on August 22, 2006. See http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/cloning-can-affect-votes-mps-told/2006/08/21/1156012474759.html
Earlier independent research conducted by Swinburne University using focus groups
(see www.swinburne.edu.au/sbs/ajets/journal/V2N2/pdf/V2N2-2-Critchley.pdf ) found that:
“Almost 30% of the sample was not at all comfortable with using cloned embryos, and the majority of the sample (63.4%) scored under the mid point (i.e. 5). Given this, and that the mean score for cloning was well below five and the modal response was zero (see Table 1), there was good evidence to conclude that the Australian public do not feel comfortable with scientists cloning human embryos for research purposes.” Although this independent research was published in 2004, it was ignored by the Lockhart Committee. Follow-up research conducted this year by Swinburne University, which is yet to be published, shows that only 31.5% of Australians are comfortable with “therapeutic cloning”.
In contrast, much has been made of the Morgan poll published on 21 June 2006, which claimed that 80% of Australians supported human cloning for embryonic stem cells. In fact, this Morgan poll is invalid, because it gave respondents false and misleading information. Respondents were told:
Scientists can now make embryonic stem cells for medical research by merging an unfertilised egg with a skin cell. In this case, no fertilisation takes place and there is no merger of the egg and sperm. Respondents were then asked: Knowing this, do you favor or oppose embryonic stem cell research?
See www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2006/4036/
The fact is that no scientist anywhere in the world has yet made a cloned human embryo, let alone taken embryonic stem cells from one. The Morgan Poll also gave a misleading description of cloning, a word which the poll carefully avoided using.
Many respondents would not have understood from the description in the Morgan poll that this process would still create a living human embryo (another word which the poll carefully avoided using) which could, if implanted in a woman’s womb, be born as a baby, but would instead be destroyed by the extraction of its stem cells.
Similarly, the AC Nielsen poll which was published in its National Issues Report on 10 September, 2006 is also invalid because of the inaccurate and misleading wording of the question. This poll found that 62% of Australians supported “the cloning of stem cells for medical research.” Again, no mention that what would be produced in the cloning process would be a human embryo which would be destroyed for its stem cells. At least AC Nielsen was professional enough to acknowledge in an endnote that “these findings should be interpreted with some caution as this is a complex issue. Previous studies have found that stem cell questions are particularly sensitive to question wording.”
Not surprisingly, the Crosby Textor poll commissioned by Research Australia which was released on 23 November 2006 (see www.researchaustralia.org ) is also invalid because it gave respondents inaccurate and misleading information. Respondents were told that “therapeutic cloning… involves creating a stem cell from a patient’s cell but does not involve the union of an egg and sperm.” Again, the fact that a living human embryo would be created and then destroyed in the process was carefully concealed. Respondents were further reassured “that the use of SCNT to clone a human will continue to be explicitly prohibited”, as if the embryo to be created by cloning was something other than human. Little wonder the poll found that 58% of Australians support “therapeutic cloning of nuclear transfer embryos for health and medical research.”
Claims being made by the cloning lobby that the community strongly supports the legalisation of human cloning are false. The opposite is in fact the case. Opinion polls are only as good as the questions that are asked, assuming the methodology is sound. The validity of opinion polls must be judged by the accuracy of the information given to respondents and the objective wording of the questions.
Cloning is wrong, because it is immoral to create human life with its destruction intended. It is also unnecessary, as ethically obtained adult stem cells will produce the treatments and cures we all want. Do not be conned by the cloning lobby, as were 34 of your Senate colleagues, into believing that rejecting human cloning will deprive the sick of hope.
And do not be conned into thinking that a cloned human embryo is somehow not human life just because sperm was not used in the process. (As Senator Alan Eggleston, who is a GP and obstetrician, explained in the Senate debate, sperm is simply a method of transporting DNA into an egg, just like a glass pipette in an IVF lab.)
I trust that you will follow your conscience and vote against the legalisation of human cloning, which was unanimously rejected for very good reason by Federal Parliament just four years ago. You can do so confident that the Australian people would support you in this.
Kind regards
ALAN BAKER
President, Family Council of Queensland
PO Box 2020, Mansfield BC 4122 Phone 0412 265 157
info@familyexpo.net
So our Representatives can vote against cloning knowing they are representing not only what is ethically right, but what is democratically desired.
We thank Alan Baker for permission to post the letter the FCQ sent today to all Federal MPs.
MOST AUSTRALIANS AGAINST HUMAN CLONING
An analysis of the opinion polls
28 November, 2006
Dear Member of the House of Representatives
While you no doubt will vote on the Patterson Bill to legalise human cloning according to your conscience, I write to inform you that the majority of Australians are opposed to the cloning of human embryos as a source of stem cells.
The most recent valid research into public attitudes to human cloning was carried out by Sexton Marketing Group for the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in January 2006 through a national telephone poll of 1200 people. It found that only 29% of respondents support the cloning of human embryos as a source of stem cells, while 51% opposed the cloning of human embryos for stem cells.
The question asked was: “Do you support or oppose the cloning of human embryos as a source of stem cells?” When it was clarified with respondents in a subsequent question that these embryos would be destroyed in the process of obtaining stem cells from them, opposition to this increased to 55% (43% of respondents were not previously aware of this fact).
This research was reported in an article in The Age by Michelle Grattan on August 22, 2006. See http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/cloning-can-affect-votes-mps-told/2006/08/21/1156012474759.html
Earlier independent research conducted by Swinburne University using focus groups
(see www.swinburne.edu.au/sbs/ajets/journal/V2N2/pdf/V2N2-2-Critchley.pdf ) found that:
“Almost 30% of the sample was not at all comfortable with using cloned embryos, and the majority of the sample (63.4%) scored under the mid point (i.e. 5). Given this, and that the mean score for cloning was well below five and the modal response was zero (see Table 1), there was good evidence to conclude that the Australian public do not feel comfortable with scientists cloning human embryos for research purposes.” Although this independent research was published in 2004, it was ignored by the Lockhart Committee. Follow-up research conducted this year by Swinburne University, which is yet to be published, shows that only 31.5% of Australians are comfortable with “therapeutic cloning”.
In contrast, much has been made of the Morgan poll published on 21 June 2006, which claimed that 80% of Australians supported human cloning for embryonic stem cells. In fact, this Morgan poll is invalid, because it gave respondents false and misleading information. Respondents were told:
Scientists can now make embryonic stem cells for medical research by merging an unfertilised egg with a skin cell. In this case, no fertilisation takes place and there is no merger of the egg and sperm. Respondents were then asked: Knowing this, do you favor or oppose embryonic stem cell research?
See www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2006/4036/
The fact is that no scientist anywhere in the world has yet made a cloned human embryo, let alone taken embryonic stem cells from one. The Morgan Poll also gave a misleading description of cloning, a word which the poll carefully avoided using.
Many respondents would not have understood from the description in the Morgan poll that this process would still create a living human embryo (another word which the poll carefully avoided using) which could, if implanted in a woman’s womb, be born as a baby, but would instead be destroyed by the extraction of its stem cells.
Similarly, the AC Nielsen poll which was published in its National Issues Report on 10 September, 2006 is also invalid because of the inaccurate and misleading wording of the question. This poll found that 62% of Australians supported “the cloning of stem cells for medical research.” Again, no mention that what would be produced in the cloning process would be a human embryo which would be destroyed for its stem cells. At least AC Nielsen was professional enough to acknowledge in an endnote that “these findings should be interpreted with some caution as this is a complex issue. Previous studies have found that stem cell questions are particularly sensitive to question wording.”
Not surprisingly, the Crosby Textor poll commissioned by Research Australia which was released on 23 November 2006 (see www.researchaustralia.org ) is also invalid because it gave respondents inaccurate and misleading information. Respondents were told that “therapeutic cloning… involves creating a stem cell from a patient’s cell but does not involve the union of an egg and sperm.” Again, the fact that a living human embryo would be created and then destroyed in the process was carefully concealed. Respondents were further reassured “that the use of SCNT to clone a human will continue to be explicitly prohibited”, as if the embryo to be created by cloning was something other than human. Little wonder the poll found that 58% of Australians support “therapeutic cloning of nuclear transfer embryos for health and medical research.”
Claims being made by the cloning lobby that the community strongly supports the legalisation of human cloning are false. The opposite is in fact the case. Opinion polls are only as good as the questions that are asked, assuming the methodology is sound. The validity of opinion polls must be judged by the accuracy of the information given to respondents and the objective wording of the questions.
Cloning is wrong, because it is immoral to create human life with its destruction intended. It is also unnecessary, as ethically obtained adult stem cells will produce the treatments and cures we all want. Do not be conned by the cloning lobby, as were 34 of your Senate colleagues, into believing that rejecting human cloning will deprive the sick of hope.
And do not be conned into thinking that a cloned human embryo is somehow not human life just because sperm was not used in the process. (As Senator Alan Eggleston, who is a GP and obstetrician, explained in the Senate debate, sperm is simply a method of transporting DNA into an egg, just like a glass pipette in an IVF lab.)
I trust that you will follow your conscience and vote against the legalisation of human cloning, which was unanimously rejected for very good reason by Federal Parliament just four years ago. You can do so confident that the Australian people would support you in this.
Kind regards
ALAN BAKER
President, Family Council of Queensland
PO Box 2020, Mansfield BC 4122 Phone 0412 265 157
info@familyexpo.net
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
TUCH’S SEAWEED TRICK: PADDED CELLS FOR STEM CELLS
Professor Bernie Tuch has given us two belly laughs in a single week. First there was his pricelessly incoherent commment celebrating the cloning victory in the Senate - that "this is as significant as the assassination of John F. Kennedy". And now he has given us an after-dinner conjuring show, doing old tricks with seaweed.
His paper, published today to headlines about 'Scientists overcome immune rejection and tumour problems with stem cells', is nothing of the sort. He uses decades-old technology of alginate packaging of cells for reducing immune response, bundles up a few ESCs - which are then rendered irrelevant for any form of tissue therapy, being unable to make contact with any tissue and says, "see, they don't form tumours!"
In fact, his paper gives us no such reassurance, and only reminds us what sleight of hand the cloning lobby has to use to make the public think this fatal flaw in ESC science can be 'got over'. Remember Prof Trounson in 2002 reassuring us that they were just about to 'get over' the immune rejection problem that made ESCs so obviously unusable in cell transplant therapy?
Whatever the public needs to hear, be sure they will be told by the new breed of scientist-lobbyist.
This paper says nothing about embryonic stem cells (ESCs) except what we already know - that these little troublemakers are so dangerous the only option is to lock them up.
Confined to their seaweed padded-cell, the ESCs in Tuch's study still tried to break out as teratoma tumours – that is, they still proliferated into an uncontrolled range of different cell types – but were contained, as Tuch writes, “by limiting the amount of space available for the cells to grow.”
Entirely appropriate, this high-security solitary confinement, for criminal cells so notorious for fatal tumour formation that last month’s study on rat Parkinson’s found that 4 in every 5 rats treated with ESCs formed teratomas.
Tuch’s paper – entirely irrelevant to the question of cloning human embryos - does show one definite finding: that ESCs formed tumours in all the mice they were put in, unless they were wrapped up in seaweed and kept away from the body tissues. So what’s new?
Gee wizz, what a useful technique: restrict ESCs to a little seaweed package to show they can remain entirely useless for long periods of time. And then celebrate the fact that they don't kill the patients.
Or maybe they will anyway, after the seaweed goes soggy and breaks up: 20% of the seaweed capsules using mouse ESCs ruptured and let their dangerous felons loose again.
Tuch's paper celebreates the fact that he can keep ESCs safely locked away in a seaweed strait-jacket, thereby barring them from the only useful work a stem cell should do - getting into and repairing damaged tissue. And all because ESCs can not, and intrinsically never will be able to do such work. Only adult stem cells, as Prof Sherly explained on his recent visit, have the capacity to take up residence in tissues and generate new cells while retaining their own identity. ESCs can only proliferate wildly - unless you first turn them into adult stem cells!
What a shonky science this is, ESCs and cloning; how second rate in every possible way to adult stem cells, which do not form tumours and which are now safely used in many conditions – including direct tissue repair of heart muscle, bone, cornea etc etc. (Journal article refs available).
Tuch's lightweight article does not herald 'The End of the Tumour Problem with ESCs'. It only confirms the intractable nature of that problem. It also confirms the puppy-like enthusiasm of the media for any bone, even with no scrap of meaningful meat on it, thrown to them by the progressive science lobby.
Above all, it confirms by contrast how safe and exciting the ethical alternative is to this futile tinkering with embryos.
Given that “the purposes of cloning can be achieved using adult stem cells” (as our leading adult stem cell researcher, Prof Alan Mackay-Sim, told the Senate hearing), how absurd it is to pursue wacky schemes like trapping ESCs in seaweed to limit their harm, when we could simply use adult stem cells safely and directly from our own tissues!
His paper, published today to headlines about 'Scientists overcome immune rejection and tumour problems with stem cells', is nothing of the sort. He uses decades-old technology of alginate packaging of cells for reducing immune response, bundles up a few ESCs - which are then rendered irrelevant for any form of tissue therapy, being unable to make contact with any tissue and says, "see, they don't form tumours!"
In fact, his paper gives us no such reassurance, and only reminds us what sleight of hand the cloning lobby has to use to make the public think this fatal flaw in ESC science can be 'got over'. Remember Prof Trounson in 2002 reassuring us that they were just about to 'get over' the immune rejection problem that made ESCs so obviously unusable in cell transplant therapy?
Whatever the public needs to hear, be sure they will be told by the new breed of scientist-lobbyist.
This paper says nothing about embryonic stem cells (ESCs) except what we already know - that these little troublemakers are so dangerous the only option is to lock them up.
Confined to their seaweed padded-cell, the ESCs in Tuch's study still tried to break out as teratoma tumours – that is, they still proliferated into an uncontrolled range of different cell types – but were contained, as Tuch writes, “by limiting the amount of space available for the cells to grow.”
Entirely appropriate, this high-security solitary confinement, for criminal cells so notorious for fatal tumour formation that last month’s study on rat Parkinson’s found that 4 in every 5 rats treated with ESCs formed teratomas.
Tuch’s paper – entirely irrelevant to the question of cloning human embryos - does show one definite finding: that ESCs formed tumours in all the mice they were put in, unless they were wrapped up in seaweed and kept away from the body tissues. So what’s new?
Gee wizz, what a useful technique: restrict ESCs to a little seaweed package to show they can remain entirely useless for long periods of time. And then celebrate the fact that they don't kill the patients.
Or maybe they will anyway, after the seaweed goes soggy and breaks up: 20% of the seaweed capsules using mouse ESCs ruptured and let their dangerous felons loose again.
Tuch's paper celebreates the fact that he can keep ESCs safely locked away in a seaweed strait-jacket, thereby barring them from the only useful work a stem cell should do - getting into and repairing damaged tissue. And all because ESCs can not, and intrinsically never will be able to do such work. Only adult stem cells, as Prof Sherly explained on his recent visit, have the capacity to take up residence in tissues and generate new cells while retaining their own identity. ESCs can only proliferate wildly - unless you first turn them into adult stem cells!
What a shonky science this is, ESCs and cloning; how second rate in every possible way to adult stem cells, which do not form tumours and which are now safely used in many conditions – including direct tissue repair of heart muscle, bone, cornea etc etc. (Journal article refs available).
Tuch's lightweight article does not herald 'The End of the Tumour Problem with ESCs'. It only confirms the intractable nature of that problem. It also confirms the puppy-like enthusiasm of the media for any bone, even with no scrap of meaningful meat on it, thrown to them by the progressive science lobby.
Above all, it confirms by contrast how safe and exciting the ethical alternative is to this futile tinkering with embryos.
Given that “the purposes of cloning can be achieved using adult stem cells” (as our leading adult stem cell researcher, Prof Alan Mackay-Sim, told the Senate hearing), how absurd it is to pursue wacky schemes like trapping ESCs in seaweed to limit their harm, when we could simply use adult stem cells safely and directly from our own tissues!
Friday, November 10, 2006
Senate succumbs to 'con science'
The Senate vote for cloning is a victory for organised lying.
Brutal legislation, that permits the creation of human young as mere raw material for research, has been achieved by systematic scientific deception.
And even on the day of the vote, science lobbyists were deceiving the public by denying the most brutal aspect of this Bill – that it lets aborted baby girls be used as ‘mothers’ of cloned embryos (see the last Blog).
Some scientists have shown they are prepared to do ‘whatever it takes’ to get liberal legislation on cloning:
We have witnessed the shameful behaviour of scientists who – as another senior scientist confided - feel so starved of funding for research that they will compromise their professional integrity for a big new bucket of public money.
We have witnessed the timidity of scientists who know that their colleagues are falsifying the science for PR reasons, who will admit that privately but will not speak up for fear of rocking the scientific boat.
In contrast, we have seen honourable scientists like Prof TJ Martin, Prof Alan Mackay-Sim and Prof James Sherley challenging their colleagues to tell the scientific truth and maintain ethical standards for human research. Their efforts, in the face of organised lying by their colleagues, has been an inspiration.
There must be no further misplaced deference to lofty Professors and other snake-oil salesmen who distort both the science and the ethics of cloning in order to progress their radical agenda.
Our MPs must be more ruthlessly skeptical of these scientific lobbyists, more diligent in uncovering the true motives for cloning, more aware of the solid-gold science of adult stem cells, if they are not to be victims of ‘con science’ like their 34 upper house colleagues.
Brutal legislation, that permits the creation of human young as mere raw material for research, has been achieved by systematic scientific deception.
And even on the day of the vote, science lobbyists were deceiving the public by denying the most brutal aspect of this Bill – that it lets aborted baby girls be used as ‘mothers’ of cloned embryos (see the last Blog).
Some scientists have shown they are prepared to do ‘whatever it takes’ to get liberal legislation on cloning:
- Fairy tales about cloning being used to treat Alzheimer’s or diabetes in humans – when in truth all it does in animals is cause tumours and genetic damage.We have witnessed the hubris of scientists who do not want anybody, even the Parliament, telling them what they can and cannot research. As one senior scientist put it to me, ‘If you let them limit us on cloning, where will it stop?’
- Continual denigration of the magnificent and ethical field of adult stem-cell science, in reality so superior to cloning for both research and treatment.
- Hiding from the public the fact that embryonic stem cells remain entirely unusable in humans, due to tumour formation, while adult stem cells are being safely used in over 1200 human trials.
- Playing word games to pretend that cloning just creates ‘cells’, when in fact it creates an entire living human embryo like any other, that could (if permitted) be born as a baby.
We have witnessed the shameful behaviour of scientists who – as another senior scientist confided - feel so starved of funding for research that they will compromise their professional integrity for a big new bucket of public money.
We have witnessed the timidity of scientists who know that their colleagues are falsifying the science for PR reasons, who will admit that privately but will not speak up for fear of rocking the scientific boat.
In contrast, we have seen honourable scientists like Prof TJ Martin, Prof Alan Mackay-Sim and Prof James Sherley challenging their colleagues to tell the scientific truth and maintain ethical standards for human research. Their efforts, in the face of organised lying by their colleagues, has been an inspiration.
There must be no further misplaced deference to lofty Professors and other snake-oil salesmen who distort both the science and the ethics of cloning in order to progress their radical agenda.
Our MPs must be more ruthlessly skeptical of these scientific lobbyists, more diligent in uncovering the true motives for cloning, more aware of the solid-gold science of adult stem cells, if they are not to be victims of ‘con science’ like their 34 upper house colleagues.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
SWEET IDEA, SENATOR: MAKE AN ABORTED BABY GIRL THE 'MOTHER' OF AN EMBRYO WHICH WILL THEN BE DESTROYED IN RESEARCH...
So few people are aware of the actual provisions of Senator Patterson’s cloning Bill now before Federal Parliament, and in only a few days it might become a done deal.
Judging from the response to our recent nationwide newspaper ad, including the response from the Sydney ABC Radio drive host after I explained the Bill to her, at least one of the most repulsive provisions is going to come back to bite the framers of this legislation.
During the Senate inquiry into our laws banning cloning, I asked Senator Patterson what the public would think of her proposal to let an aborted baby girl be used as the ‘mother’ of a cloned embryo which will then be destroyed in research.
She did not answer, but conferred closely with Senator Moore, who first tried to call my bluff – asking for me to show just exactly where such a provision was made in the Bill. Then, when I started to quote chapter and verse she cut across me to say she would take that on notice (apparently to stop me putting the facts on Hansard).
The exchange, for the record, went thusly – and I admit to having enjoyed being asked the opening question… Nothing I like more than a limp question from a moral-equivalence post-modernist type who feels that if there are ‘alternative’ views then they must all be considered to be of equal moral worth!
Senator MOORE— Dr van Gend, before my time runs out, which is imminent, I want to get on the record, from your position, whether you accept that there are genuinely alternative views on the arguments you have put forward and whether the debate has been open.
Dr van Gend—I think there are obviously alternative views. I quoted Professor Savulescu, who is professor of ethics at Oxford. He is a Melbourne man. He wants to create cloned embryos, grow them to foetuses and cull them for their organs to solve the transplant issue. He is a very serious man and he holds a very genuine view—and I hate it. I think on this we agree that there will be views held by people which we find horrendous, and that is one of them. I find it horrendous that in Senator Patterson’s bill she is proposing that an aborted baby girl can be used to become the mother of a cloned embryo which will then be destroyed in research. You ask the public what they think of that and see if there is ‘deep and widely held opposition’, to quote the Lockhart committee, to the proposal of using precursor cells from an aborted foetus in order to generate a cloned embryo that can be used in research. See what comes of that.
Senator MOORE—I give up. Can you actually show me in the draft bill and the explanatory memorandum where that is allowed. I would like to see where in the bill the statement you just made is proposed. I put that to you on notice.
Dr van Gend—I can tell you now. On page 3 of 30 of the first section of the explanatory memorandum it says:
create human embryos using precursor cells from a human embryo or a human fetus, and use such embryos ...
So it is talking about using the precursor cells from a human foetus to create a cloned embryo— that is the ovarian precursor for a little egg out of an aborted baby girl. That is what a precursor cell is defined as in the current act. You ask the public what they think about creating clones from aborted baby girls which will then be destroyed in research. It will fail the Lockhart test.
Senator MOORE—I will go back and have a look.
Tuesday, 24 October 2006 Senate CA 110 COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Indeed, another good look – and no doubt this foulest of the many filthy provisions in the Patterson Bill will look like a political liability now that it has been exposed, and will be traded away in the amendments, as the pro-cloning Senators try to cobble together a slim majority next week.
Still, let it be on the record for now that Senater Patterson’s Bill does propose such vileness, such a morally degraded concept as would once have disqualified the proposer from public office in a decent society.
And let it be on the record that all her protestations about this Bill NOT allowing the creation of sperm-egg embryos are exposed as false. For some superstitious reason, Senator Patterson and the Lockhart committee consider the sperm-egg embryo to be quite different in moral status from an SCNT embryo - even though, in themselves, they are all embryos trying to grow into babies. Yet here we have an admission from both Patterson and Lockhart (see below) that they did have a hidden provision in their Bill for creation of sperm-egg embryos – using the ova from the aborted baby.
This is plain deceitful: making these stern claims about the wrongness of creating sperm-egg embryos, then sneaking in this means of creating sperm-egg embryos, under the cloak of jargon like ‘precursor cells’.
In case there is any doubt as to the meaning and intent of this provision – of creating and using human embryos from precursor cells from a fetus – remember that ‘precursor cells’ are explained in the current Act as being the immature sperm or egg cells in the primitive gonads of the fetus.
And in response to questions on notice from Senator Barnett, Loane Skene for the Lockhart Committee has admitted that they did ‘envisage’ the use of eggs from aborted baby girls for making embryos. Further:
1. That their recommendation will allow eggs from aborted baby girls to be used either for cloning or for fertilisation by sperm from an adult male.
2. That they gave no particular consideration to community opinion on this particular issue.
3. That to avoid the fact that fetal eggs create an sperm-egg embryo, which they claim to ban, they simply chose to think of an embryo made using fetal precursor cells as being 'more like' an "SCNT embryo" than an "egg-sperm" embryo made for IVF.
Wishful thinking as a way of living with duplicity. And we are meant to respect this sneaky mob?
Let’s hope our Senators are skeptical enough of the slippery ethics of the Lockhart Committee and the shameless hype of certain scientists to retain the ban on such inhumanities as this -making an aborted baby girl the dead ‘mother’ of embryos created solely for destruction.
What are we becoming? Have we entirely lost the moral sanity that makes us say 'No! Enough!'
The week ahead will tell.
Judging from the response to our recent nationwide newspaper ad, including the response from the Sydney ABC Radio drive host after I explained the Bill to her, at least one of the most repulsive provisions is going to come back to bite the framers of this legislation.
During the Senate inquiry into our laws banning cloning, I asked Senator Patterson what the public would think of her proposal to let an aborted baby girl be used as the ‘mother’ of a cloned embryo which will then be destroyed in research.
She did not answer, but conferred closely with Senator Moore, who first tried to call my bluff – asking for me to show just exactly where such a provision was made in the Bill. Then, when I started to quote chapter and verse she cut across me to say she would take that on notice (apparently to stop me putting the facts on Hansard).
The exchange, for the record, went thusly – and I admit to having enjoyed being asked the opening question… Nothing I like more than a limp question from a moral-equivalence post-modernist type who feels that if there are ‘alternative’ views then they must all be considered to be of equal moral worth!
Senator MOORE— Dr van Gend, before my time runs out, which is imminent, I want to get on the record, from your position, whether you accept that there are genuinely alternative views on the arguments you have put forward and whether the debate has been open.
Dr van Gend—I think there are obviously alternative views. I quoted Professor Savulescu, who is professor of ethics at Oxford. He is a Melbourne man. He wants to create cloned embryos, grow them to foetuses and cull them for their organs to solve the transplant issue. He is a very serious man and he holds a very genuine view—and I hate it. I think on this we agree that there will be views held by people which we find horrendous, and that is one of them. I find it horrendous that in Senator Patterson’s bill she is proposing that an aborted baby girl can be used to become the mother of a cloned embryo which will then be destroyed in research. You ask the public what they think of that and see if there is ‘deep and widely held opposition’, to quote the Lockhart committee, to the proposal of using precursor cells from an aborted foetus in order to generate a cloned embryo that can be used in research. See what comes of that.
Senator MOORE—I give up. Can you actually show me in the draft bill and the explanatory memorandum where that is allowed. I would like to see where in the bill the statement you just made is proposed. I put that to you on notice.
Dr van Gend—I can tell you now. On page 3 of 30 of the first section of the explanatory memorandum it says:
create human embryos using precursor cells from a human embryo or a human fetus, and use such embryos ...
So it is talking about using the precursor cells from a human foetus to create a cloned embryo— that is the ovarian precursor for a little egg out of an aborted baby girl. That is what a precursor cell is defined as in the current act. You ask the public what they think about creating clones from aborted baby girls which will then be destroyed in research. It will fail the Lockhart test.
Senator MOORE—I will go back and have a look.
Tuesday, 24 October 2006 Senate CA 110 COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Indeed, another good look – and no doubt this foulest of the many filthy provisions in the Patterson Bill will look like a political liability now that it has been exposed, and will be traded away in the amendments, as the pro-cloning Senators try to cobble together a slim majority next week.
Still, let it be on the record for now that Senater Patterson’s Bill does propose such vileness, such a morally degraded concept as would once have disqualified the proposer from public office in a decent society.
And let it be on the record that all her protestations about this Bill NOT allowing the creation of sperm-egg embryos are exposed as false. For some superstitious reason, Senator Patterson and the Lockhart committee consider the sperm-egg embryo to be quite different in moral status from an SCNT embryo - even though, in themselves, they are all embryos trying to grow into babies. Yet here we have an admission from both Patterson and Lockhart (see below) that they did have a hidden provision in their Bill for creation of sperm-egg embryos – using the ova from the aborted baby.
This is plain deceitful: making these stern claims about the wrongness of creating sperm-egg embryos, then sneaking in this means of creating sperm-egg embryos, under the cloak of jargon like ‘precursor cells’.
In case there is any doubt as to the meaning and intent of this provision – of creating and using human embryos from precursor cells from a fetus – remember that ‘precursor cells’ are explained in the current Act as being the immature sperm or egg cells in the primitive gonads of the fetus.
And in response to questions on notice from Senator Barnett, Loane Skene for the Lockhart Committee has admitted that they did ‘envisage’ the use of eggs from aborted baby girls for making embryos. Further:
1. That their recommendation will allow eggs from aborted baby girls to be used either for cloning or for fertilisation by sperm from an adult male.
2. That they gave no particular consideration to community opinion on this particular issue.
3. That to avoid the fact that fetal eggs create an sperm-egg embryo, which they claim to ban, they simply chose to think of an embryo made using fetal precursor cells as being 'more like' an "SCNT embryo" than an "egg-sperm" embryo made for IVF.
Wishful thinking as a way of living with duplicity. And we are meant to respect this sneaky mob?
Let’s hope our Senators are skeptical enough of the slippery ethics of the Lockhart Committee and the shameless hype of certain scientists to retain the ban on such inhumanities as this -making an aborted baby girl the dead ‘mother’ of embryos created solely for destruction.
What are we becoming? Have we entirely lost the moral sanity that makes us say 'No! Enough!'
The week ahead will tell.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
National Newspaper Ad: DOCTORS DIG DEEP TO INFORM PUBLIC ON CLONING
NEWS For immediate release THURSDAY, 2nd NOVEMBER
NATIONAL ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN ON CLONING:
DOCTORS DIG DEEP TO INFORM PUBLIC
Doctors have spearheaded a $120,000-plus national advertising campaign to argue the ethical and scientific case against the legalisation of human cloning.
A full page color ad in The Australian and tabloid-size ads in newspapers in every state capital will be rolled out from today, leading up to the Senate conscience vote on cloning next week.
See http://www.makeastand.org.au/dnh_broadsheet.jpg 673KB http://www.makeastand.org.au/dnh_tabloid.jpg 407 KB
The ad, authorised by Dr David van Gend of Do No Harm! Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research, has been supported by Doctors Against Cloning, a group of more than 200 doctors formed recently to express opposition to cloning on ethical and scientific grounds.
Dr Megan Best, national convenor of Doctors Against Cloning, said: “We wrote last month to all Senators and MPs stating that only ethical and effective stem cell research should be supported. This advertisement explains why cloning is unethical in humans and ineffective even in animals, and reminds the public that adult stem cell research is superior both ethically and scientifically. Therefore we are very pleased to support the ad.”
Dr van Gend said: “The public has no idea of the inhuman provisions of the Patterson Bill - that it will allow the creation of human embryos as mere laboratory material, decreeing that they must be killed at 14 days of age; that it will allow the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos using eggs of a pig or rabbit; and even allow an aborted baby girl to become the ‘mother’ of an embryo which will then be destroyed in research.
“This advertising initiative, funded by doctors and concerned mums and dads across Australia, will help alert the public and their representatives to the unethical proposals of the Patterson ‘clone and kill’ Bill,” Dr van Gend said.
“Cloning is wrong in humans, unproven in animals in terms of safety and effectiveness and unnecessary.
“Australia should support stem cell science that serves our humanity, not this misguided science that violates our humanity,” Dr van Gend concluded.
The ad argues that cloning is wrong, because cloning creates a human embryo like any other embryo, and it is wrong to create human embryos solely for research.
The ad argues that cloning is unnecessary, because “we will still get the great benefits of stem cell science” using adult stem cells, which have been proven to be both safe and effective in humans.
It warns of the “future abuses” that will only be made possible if Australia perfects the technique of cloning, quoting Melbourne Professor Julian Savulescu’s demand to develop cloned embryos to the fetal stage to obtain organs for transplantation, and Melbourne academic Daniel Elsner’s defence of cloning right through to birth.
The ad links to the resource website of Do No Harm (www.cloning.org.au) and to a new campaign website (www.makeastand.org.au) where the public can email their Senators and Federal MPs to ask them “to reject cloning, but support the magnificent field of adult stem cell science.”
CONTACTS NATIONAL AND STATE
NATIONAL: Dr David van Gend, 0417 007066; 07 46329377; vangend@machousemedical.com.au
National Director Do No Harm! Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research www.cloning.org.au
NATIONAL AND NSW: Dr Megan Best, 0434 823678
National Convenor, Doctors Against Cloning
VIC: Dr Eloise Piercy, 0438 363509
QLD: Alan Baker, 0412 265157
WA: Richard Egan, 0416 148008
SA: Damien Wyld, 0402 751889
TAS: Pat Gartlan 03 6223 1818
NEWSPAPER PUBLICATION DAYS
THURSDAY 2nd November:
The Australian
The Age
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Courier-Mail
FRIDAY 3rd November
The West Australian
SATURDAY 4th November
The Advertiser (Adelaide)
SUNDAY 5th November
The Sunday Tasmanian
NATIONAL ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN ON CLONING:
DOCTORS DIG DEEP TO INFORM PUBLIC
Doctors have spearheaded a $120,000-plus national advertising campaign to argue the ethical and scientific case against the legalisation of human cloning.
A full page color ad in The Australian and tabloid-size ads in newspapers in every state capital will be rolled out from today, leading up to the Senate conscience vote on cloning next week.
See http://www.makeastand.org.au/dnh_broadsheet.jpg 673KB http://www.makeastand.org.au/dnh_tabloid.jpg 407 KB
The ad, authorised by Dr David van Gend of Do No Harm! Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research, has been supported by Doctors Against Cloning, a group of more than 200 doctors formed recently to express opposition to cloning on ethical and scientific grounds.
Dr Megan Best, national convenor of Doctors Against Cloning, said: “We wrote last month to all Senators and MPs stating that only ethical and effective stem cell research should be supported. This advertisement explains why cloning is unethical in humans and ineffective even in animals, and reminds the public that adult stem cell research is superior both ethically and scientifically. Therefore we are very pleased to support the ad.”
Dr van Gend said: “The public has no idea of the inhuman provisions of the Patterson Bill - that it will allow the creation of human embryos as mere laboratory material, decreeing that they must be killed at 14 days of age; that it will allow the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos using eggs of a pig or rabbit; and even allow an aborted baby girl to become the ‘mother’ of an embryo which will then be destroyed in research.
“This advertising initiative, funded by doctors and concerned mums and dads across Australia, will help alert the public and their representatives to the unethical proposals of the Patterson ‘clone and kill’ Bill,” Dr van Gend said.
“Cloning is wrong in humans, unproven in animals in terms of safety and effectiveness and unnecessary.
“Australia should support stem cell science that serves our humanity, not this misguided science that violates our humanity,” Dr van Gend concluded.
The ad argues that cloning is wrong, because cloning creates a human embryo like any other embryo, and it is wrong to create human embryos solely for research.
The ad argues that cloning is unnecessary, because “we will still get the great benefits of stem cell science” using adult stem cells, which have been proven to be both safe and effective in humans.
It warns of the “future abuses” that will only be made possible if Australia perfects the technique of cloning, quoting Melbourne Professor Julian Savulescu’s demand to develop cloned embryos to the fetal stage to obtain organs for transplantation, and Melbourne academic Daniel Elsner’s defence of cloning right through to birth.
The ad links to the resource website of Do No Harm (www.cloning.org.au) and to a new campaign website (www.makeastand.org.au) where the public can email their Senators and Federal MPs to ask them “to reject cloning, but support the magnificent field of adult stem cell science.”
CONTACTS NATIONAL AND STATE
NATIONAL: Dr David van Gend, 0417 007066; 07 46329377; vangend@machousemedical.com.au
National Director Do No Harm! Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research www.cloning.org.au
NATIONAL AND NSW: Dr Megan Best, 0434 823678
National Convenor, Doctors Against Cloning
VIC: Dr Eloise Piercy, 0438 363509
QLD: Alan Baker, 0412 265157
WA: Richard Egan, 0416 148008
SA: Damien Wyld, 0402 751889
TAS: Pat Gartlan 03 6223 1818
NEWSPAPER PUBLICATION DAYS
THURSDAY 2nd November:
The Australian
The Age
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Courier-Mail
FRIDAY 3rd November
The West Australian
SATURDAY 4th November
The Advertiser (Adelaide)
SUNDAY 5th November
The Sunday Tasmanian
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