A HIDDEN provision in the cloning bill set to be debated in the House of Representatives this week could allow scientists to create embryos from aborted baby girls, an anti-cloning campaigner alleged.
This was claimed in a letter sent to all Federal MPs on November 20 from Do No Harm! Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research, which promotes ethical stem cell research but opposes cloning.
The group’s national director, Dr David van Gend of Toowoomba, said the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction Bill 2002, introduced by Liberal Senator Kay Patterson, would allow scientists to “create human embryos using precursor cells from a human embryo or a human foetus, and use such embryos”.
As defined in the bill, “precursor cell means a cell that has the potential to develop into a human egg or human sperm”.
These are the immature egg cells or sperm cells in the developing foetus, which can be used for cloning, or can be matured into a usable egg to create “sperm-egg” embryos.
Dr van Gend said the bill allowed for an aborted baby girl to be used as the “mother” of embryos that will then be destroyed in research.
Dr van Gend said the corrupt bill must be rejected.
