WA Human Embryo Cloning Laws Unethical and Unnecessary

Australian Christian Lobby - Newsletter

1, May 2008

WA politicians seemed unaware that some of the world’s leading advocates for cloning human embryos had abandoned the practice in favour of a better and ethical means of procuring stem cells.

Australian Christian Lobby WA State Director Michelle Pearse today urged Upper House MPs to consider the full facts before deciding how they would vote on a controversial cloning bill before the House.

Mrs Pearse said she was concerned that some Upper House MPs may be confused about what embryonic cloning involves and are ignoring the latest developments in scientific research which experts say make cloning irrelevant.

“Our Upper House MPs have a duty to consider all of the scientific developments around stem cell research. To ignore or not acknowledge the latest scientific developments is not fulfilling this responsibility,” Mrs Pearse said.

Many of Western Australia’s MPs support human embryo cloning on the grounds that the stem cells produced could differentiate into many of the cell types in the human body. But scientists last November proved an ethical alternative method using re-programmed skin cells which could also differentiate into many of the cell types in the human body, be it heart, brain, blood or bone.

Mrs Pearse said this meant there were no grounds for continuing controversial research on human embryos, when the use of skin cells produced the same result.   

This massive scientific breakthrough has been published in two papers, one by Yamanaka in the journal Cell and one by Thomson in the journal Science whereby ordinary skin cells are transformed into the likeness of an embryonic stem cell without cloning and killing a human embryo.

“Even the scientist who created ‘Dolly the Sheep’, Professor Ian Wilmut, who held a licence in the UK to clone human embryos, has abandoned embryonic cloning in favour of this better scientific method so why should Western Australia be pursuing it?” Mrs Pearse said.

“WA Upper House MPs should support ethical research and better science instead of research which involves the creation and destruction of human life.”

Media Contact: Michelle Pearse on 0400 869 107 or Glynis Quinlan on 0408 875 979