Stem Cell Bill Passes in Australia

nickd writes "Having recently being passed in the Senate by only 2 votes, an Australian bill to overturn the ban on 'theraputic cloning' has now been passed in the House of Representatives by 82-62. The amendment that was seeking to prevent stem cells being extracted from the eggs of aborted late term female fetuses has also been voted down. The changes will allow scientists to create and use embryos up to 14 days old for research."

Comments

Australia has a "house" and "senate"?

[carn1fex]

I figured they just sorta split into two teams with rival pieces of legislation on opposite goal posts and played some sort of mad max rugby with no pads to determine what passes.

Re:Good

[lgw]

I'm no fundamentalist, but creating embryos for research purposes strikes me as a bit creepy. Are you sure that creating (at least the beginning of) a human life simple for the purpose of destructive testing is OK? It seems to me that "shoot first and ask moral questions later" might not be the best approach, if the goal is saving lives. Historically, thos who have said "they are really people, and real people can be helped by killing them" haven't been judged well.