Stem Cell Research Bill Clears Australian Senate

jaunty writes "A private members bill has passed the Australian senate which paves the way for the cloning of embryos to gather stem cells. While it only passed by a narrow margin it is expected to gain support in the House. From the article: 'The final shape of the bill is now subject to further debate on amendments including measures to toughen penalties for breaches of cloning regulations, and possibly a move to stop the use of animal tissue in the cloning process.'"

Comments

Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of research is essential for the improvement of the human race, and all of this religious BS preventing it from happening makes me sick.

Re:Good.

[Aladrin]

I disagree. While I believe in God, that is not my reason for disagreeing.

See, there was this Darwin fellow... And his theory is that nature and environment shape the improvement of species. No cloning was necessary, and no genetic experimentation in laboratories was ever needed.

I used to worry that because we formed societies, and protect the weak, that evolution was being crippled and Humanity was harmed by it. But I finally got to REALLY looking around, and humans even LOOK different than we did 50 years ago. The average IQ has increased. And in general, evolution continues.

Life still tends to destroy the most useless genes for survival, even while we are doing our best to protect them.

I no longer worry about evolution doing its job.

So the human race IS still improving at the normal rate. No 'religious BS' is preventing it.

As for the abnormal progress you are looking for, yes... I'll admit that religion is hampering that. But maybe that's for the best... By the time it IS legal, the problems will have been discussed and prepared for as best as possible. If we simply rush in, who knows what could happen? Weird viruses, whole generations of gene-gineered babies that have odd defects that no drug can fix, since it was a genetic issue, etc.

In the end, the zealots are helping us... Just not in the way they intended.

Re:Good.

[ArcherB]

This kind of research is essential for the improvement of the human race, and all of this religious BS preventing it from happening makes me sick.

It's not religion, it's ethics. Look at the medical "experiments" the Nazi's performed without regard to either.

Today we are cloning embryos for scientific research. Why not clone zygotes? How about cloning babies? Why not use the retarded for research? How about the unemployed and homeless? Where do you draw the line? Why should I let your lack of ethics dictate how I feel about the subject?

Re:Good.

[yakiimo2]

Parent has interesting comments, and those are certainly specialized behaviors that are more or less unique to Humans.

However, make no mistake about evolution and roughly Natural Selection not applying to us. I know of no evidence that suggests humans will not be judged by time and our ability to thrive. All of our specialized behaviors such as caring for the sick, accomodating people outside the average ability (disabled people), etc. give us big advantages by keeping brain and body power available, but dependence on those same behaviors could most certainly turn out to be a weakness if our circumstances change (ice age, meteors falling, aliens arriving, plague, whatever).

Our behaviors are just that. From a removed perspective, there is nothing special about human behavior compared to other animals on earth except that we are currently very successful in thriving in this environment.

-John

Re:Before coming to a knee jerk conclusion read th

[pubjames]

These are authorative sources.

Well, I guess if that depends upon whether you think a bunch of celibate men that think an invisible supernatural being is listening to them are "authorative".

I've looked at the bishops document and it contains nothing to do with the science of stem cell research.

Bringing the god botherers into the debate

[Colin Smith]

Simply muddies the issue.

The fact that it's a rabbit's egg is really irrelevant, all of the rabbit DNA is removed (apart from the mitochondrial) so it's basically just a shell. It isn't as if they're going to make an animal which is a cross between a humand and a rabbit, the DNA codes for a human being, that's what you'd get.

I don't see any moral issues here, it isn't a human being, it's a collection of cells without nervous system, the DNA wouldn't even come from a human egg or even something which could possibly have developed into a human.

Re:Bringing the god botherers into the debate

[Ginger Unicorn]

you're presenting a load of ridiculous extremes as a straw man.

You dont have to know at what point it becomes a person to have some kind of sensible cutoff point to stop experimentation / abortion. All you have to determine is some point at which everyone agrees it IS NOT yet a person. There is no rational point in saying any cell that contains human DNA is a human, because every time i get my hair cut i dont leave a tangled mess of humans on the barber's floor.

A single cell has no feelings and no conciousness. A human/animal hybrid cell has NO potential to become a viable embryo so you cant even use that questionable logic to argue that you're denying it any future.

Re:Bringing the god botherers into the debate

[RsG]

OK, when does it become human? Two cells? 100? Birth?

I suppose you'll tell me it's when it gets a soul?

I'd say a human is a "person" for our purposes when and if they become capable of thought. DNA is irrelevant; my toenail clippings will show up as "100% human" on a DNA test. Moreover, depending on the test, you might have a hard time telling me a chimp isn't also "human", since the DNA is much the same.

The human form (shape and body) is irrelevant, as a human in some other form would still qualify as a person (for example, somebody seriously deformed or crippled). Plus, I don't think anyone would seriously argue that what defines us as human is the shape of our flesh, which is all that the human form and human genome amount to.

What about life you say? Get back to me when we no longer eat other mammals. There is no "sanctity of life" in any society (with a few notable exceptions); there is only sanctity of human life, which gets you right back to the question of what we define as "human". And no, I am not a vegan or vegetarian, but if I personally believed that life itself was sacred in some way, then it would be hypocritical of me to eat meat.

What does that leave? The mind, and little else. There is no trait that is more distinctly human on earth.

So, when does a human mind develop to the point where we consider the human a legal or ethical person? I have no idea. Since newborns clearly have some degree of consciousness, it must be before birth. Presumably he development of a mind would coincide with the development of the higher centers of the brain.

But it would be utterly, utterly moronic to suggest that a few replicating cells have attained consciousness. A fetus in it's third trimester might or might not qualify; a newly fertilized embryo certainly does not.

Of course, this definition is not espoused by any law I know of, but I can think of no other definition of "human life" that is both logical and consistent with our current practices of agriculture, medical care and the like. And I suppose that this definition would be broad enough that we should apply some protection to other species that display intellect, such as dolphins, whales and primates.

Re:Notice that they choose MELBOURNE CUP DAY to vo

[svunt]

If you've been too busy thinking about a horse race to notice the nightly coverage of the vote every day for the past week or more, and the debate leading up to the vote, then you deserve to miss out on being part of the scrutiny.

Personally, I'm happy as hell that the law has been passed; ignorance has lost out for once.

Re:Before coming to a knee jerk conclusion read th

[babbling]

my personal feelings are that the Australian parliament has fallen into the trap of allowing the end to justify the means

No, they allowed their decision to be based on science rather than what the church says. You'd be crying foul if it was Islamists trying to influence the law, so stop pushing for Christian law.

There's a lot of people who could be saved by this research, and if a few frog biological cells (that don't even have brains) have to die in the process, then so be it.

Re:Before coming to a knee jerk conclusion read th

[Rudigore]

The only thing catholic bishops could claim to be authoritative about are ancient religious tracts and the bizarre labyrinthine philosophy they've developed from them.

Re:hrmph

[ElleyKitten]

I am all for whoever wants to research this can, I just believe it is unconstitutional to do so.

What specifically in the Constitution says anything about stem cell research?

Re:even if only 2 cells, if dna is human it's huma

[massivefoot]

There is a very fundamental difference between a blastocyst and a 9 month pregnancy in that the former does not have a brain, whereas the latter does.

Any human embryo is a human, just an underdeveloped one. We shouldn't play with that stuff. Each of us was at that stage at one point in our lives. Some of the greatest people that have ever existed had genetic problems... We shouldn't go around playing God.

The first sentence is debatable. I'm not sure when a biologist would begin to define something as "a human", but it would probably not be at this stage. Yes, we were all blastocysts once. We were also each an unfertilized egg at some stage as well. It is not usually considered a tragedy that an egg goes unfertilized and dies at the end of a woman's cycle. Some of the greatest people have indeed had genetic problems, however this research does not concern denying life to enbryos with such problems. Stem cell therapy is concerned with treating disorders in living people. It is distinct from selecting embryos based on desirable qualities.

So far, fetal stem cell research has not proven any real use... no real developments are apparent from it. Adult stem cell research on the other hand has all sorts of possibilities, and is an area that's been studied a lot more. Adult stem cell research is pretty much what we have so far, and it works. Why kill potential babies in order to do research that probably won't save any lives for any time in the near future.

Fetal stem cell research is at an early stage. There was a time only a few centuries ago when the same could have been said of electrical science (and there were people killed in the process). Science tends to be concerned with pure research first, and often a later time will arrive when that research can be translated into useful developments. It is unreasonable to expect stem cell research to have produced cures at this stage.

Adult stem cell therapies do indeed have potential to cure certain disorders, and I am all for research in this area. However fetal stem cells are far more versatile, and offer the possibilities of cures for a far greater number of such disorders. In response to you last sentence about "potential babies" I would refer you to what I said earlier. Every possible sperm-egg combination is a potential baby. By your definition, every unfertilized egg is a potential baby killed.

Another problem with fetal stem cell research is that it creates a need for egg donations.

There are currently proposals that would dramatically reduce the number of human eggs required for such research by removing all the DNA (except mitochondrial) from an egg of another animal, for instance cows, and replacing it with human DNA. Whilst there are issues with whether this will be sufficiently safe to use in treatments, it certainly avoids some ethical problems during the reseach stages.