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Australia Retains Ban on Human Cloning

By Terry Vanderheyden

CANBERRA, August 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Australia’s parliament has decided to retain a country-wide ban on human cloning for the purposes of embryonic stem cell research.

“It was after very careful consideration that the government announced it was not disposed to make any changes to the existing national legislative framework for research involving human embryos,” said Science Minister Julie Bishop, according to The Age.

Protest from backbench members has compelled Prime Minister John Howard to plan a special party room debate on the issue in the coming weeks.

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott warned last week that Australia must not pursue human cloning and embryonic stem cell research, calling such a move “a bridge too far”.

“I think that there are rightly limits on what people ought to do, and in my view, therapeutic cloning, so-called, is a bridge too far,” said Abbott, who rejected the notion of crossing moral boundaries in the quest of advancing scientific and medical research. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06080302.html)

A prominent senior official of Australia’s largest trade union meanwhile also denounced attempts to legalize human cloning for embryonic stem-cell research, comparing the practice to human experiments made by Germany’s Nazi doctors, as reported by LifeSiteNews.com Friday.

“Therapeutic cloning is the creation of human life for the express purpose of destroying it so you can obtain the stem cells and do research,” explained Joe de Bruyn, the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union secretary. “That’s no different to what Hitler’s doctors used to do during the last century. They experimented on human life, and that’s what this is.” (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06080408.html)

Bishop added that despite the ban, destructive research on already-created embryonic babies – so-called leftovers from in-vitro fertilization – will still continue, as an additional $100 million has been allotted for the practice.

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