CANADIAN ASSISTED REPRODUCTION LEGISLATION STILL HAS TIME

OTTAWA, February 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com)  Fears that that the federal government would shut down debate and pass the Assisted Human Reproduction legislation (Bill C-13) were allayed today as debate was pushed to next week.  The pro-life movement is using the opportunity to stress the importance of supporting amending Motions 13 and 17.  While the current bill claims to ban all human cloning, experts who have analyzed the bill note that while committee amendments have banned some forms of cloning, human cloning by various other techniques are still allowed. Hence the importance of MP Paul Szabo’s motion 13 which would ban human cloning by “any technique.”  Dr. Dianne Irving, a PhD bioethicist and philosopher from the Catholic University of America, has said that the current wording of the legislation would ban cloning techniques such as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), germline CNT, twinning, and simple parthenogenesis.  However, Dr. Irving notes that some of the more cutting-edge methods of cloning would still be permitted such as pro-nuclei nuclear transfer, mitochondria transfer, and DNA recombinant germline transfer.  Dr. John Shea, medical advisor for Campaign Life Coalition explained that by forbidding SCNT the bill has only banned research “which is not going anywhere anyway.  They know that SCNT doesn’t work, Dolly’s dead.”  But by continuing to allow pro-nuclei transfer cloning, the eugenic designs of advanced researchers can still have access to human cloning, he said.  The second critical motion submitted by Jason Kenney, Motion 17, would outlaw embryo experimentation of any kind. We strongly urge MPs to vote for both of these key motions as well as all the other motions in group 2.  See LifeSite’s Stem Cell Page https://www.lifesitenews.com/features/stemcellembryo/index.html