News

By Peter J. Smith

Joe de BruynMELBOURNE, Australia, August 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A prominent senior official of Australia’s largest trade union has denounced attempts to legalize human cloning for embryonic stem-cell research and compared the practice to human experiments made by Germany’s Nazi doctors, reports the Australian.

“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,” stated Joe de Bruyn, the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union secretary.Â

De Bruyn told the Australian, “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.”

Earlier this week, Australia’s Health Minister Tony Abbott had also condemned efforts to pressure the government to lift its ban on human cloning for the sake of stem-cell research, calling it “a bridge too far”, and told the National Press Club that there is “very little evidence embryonic stem cell research is the health nirvana”.

The Victorian and Queensland premiers have been the principal leaders in pressuring Prime Minister John Howard’s Government to reconsider its ban on human embryo research. Both leaders indicated their state governments are considering their options for financing experiments in therapeutic human cloning, despite the federal government’s ban.

Next Monday, August 7, members of Howard’s coalition government will debate on lifting the ban on human cloning in a special party room meeting before Parliament reconvenes. Howard, speaking ahead of the party room debate, repeated yesterday his conviction that the laws on stem cell research should not change.

Related LifeSite Coverage:

Australian Health Minister Warns Cloning, Embryo Research: “A Bridge Too Far”
  Cloning/Embryo research a slippery slope that will only lead to more and more sordid human experimentation
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06080302.html