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

YES!

[Toby The Economist]

Well, it had to happen.

A political body has done something sensible.

I mean, it's like proton decay. It *had* to happen eventually.

Finally the neo-con world agenda is slippin

[arcite]

Now we can get back to building the future, this is the 21st century after all.

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.

U.S. the new "down under"?

[shabushabu]

It's incredible how countries around the world are prepared to take bold steps to further science, while we are still mired in our ridiculous issues. (I'm sorry, but squashing a potential cure for a disease like Parkinson's, to protect an embryo that was going to be destroyed anyway, does not fall under my definition of "ethics") Leave it to the fundamentalists, and our country is going "down under".

Societal Degeneration From The Non-Christian Left

[Anonymous Coward]

We live on this Earth for a finite time, but our eternal fate is really what's in question. Just remember that if Christians are wrong, they have really lost nothing other than some time and effort. If Christians are correct, then you, as a non-Christian, have lost everything. Are you willing to make that gamble?

This is not about stem cells...

[RecycledElectrons]

This is not about stem cells, this is about totempotent stem cells, which show no use in treating anyone ofr anything.

Polypotent stem cells, OTOH, are imensely useful, and can not be obtained from embryos.

This is about providing a phony claim that abortion can cure diseases. This is purely political.

The single most amazing thing is that feminisits want to kill baby girls and harvest their ovaries to make more babies to kill. Hitler was a kind & gentle man compared to these NAZIs.

Andy Out!

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.