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STOP HUMAN CLONING CAMPAIGN
Senator Natasha Stott Despoja (Democrat) and Senator Lynn Allison (Liberal) are each planning legislation based on the Lockhart Inquiry into human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. This inquiry proposed:
1. Use a woman’s donated human egg, removing the nucleus and fusing it with a cell from an adult person to produce an embryonic clone of that person, i.e. somatic cell nuclear transfer;
2. Take an animal egg, remove the nucleus and then fuse it with a cell from an adult human person to make an embryo, an animal-human hybrid;
3. Use human genetic material and genetic material from two or more animal species to create a chimera, another form of animal-human embryo;
4. Use genetic material from multiple women and men to create an embryo with more than two parents; and
5 Widening access by scientists to fertilized embryos for embryonic stem cell research.
These proposals represent gross violations of the dignity of the embryo.
Sign up to the Open Statement on Human Cloning and Embryo Stem Cell Research.
All types of human cloning are recognized internationally as unethical and repugnant. We ask our political leaders to have regard for the inherent dignity of all human beings, whatever their level of maturity, dependency or ability. We urge our governments to reject all human embryo creation for the purposes of destructive research, and to support ethical research using stem cells from alternate, non-embryonic sources , which have proven results. Sign up here..
Read our Q&A on human cloning and embryonic stem cell research.
If made legal, the most likely cloning technology to be used would be somatic cell
nuclear transfer (SCNT). Some politicians have falsely claimed that this technique
does not involve producing a human embryo, yet it is the same process used to
clone animals, like Dolly the sheep! Read more...
What’s changed since 2002 when Federal Parliament unanimously voted to prohibit all human cloning?
Find out here...
Key Materials
Stem-cell decision is a question of morality, not science
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/09/13/1157827015944.html
Sold on misconceptions, Christopher Pearson (The Australian, August 19, 2006)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20171412-7583,00.html
Cloning can affect votes, MPs told, Michelle Grattan and Katharine Murphy (The Age, August 22, 2006)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/mps-told-that-most-oppose-embryo-cloning/2006/08/21/1156012474759.html
Ignore the hype in the cloning debate, By Nicholas Tonti-Filippini (The Age, September 4, 2006)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/ignore-the-hype-in-the-cloning-debate/2006/09/03/1157222002193.html
Professor Diane Beeson, Hearing on Stem Cell Research (before a US Congressional Committee)
http://handsoffourovaries.com/commentary.htm
Judy Norsigian, Testimony before US Congressional Committee hearings on stem cell research (See Download Appendix F)
http://handsoffourovaries.com/commentary.htm
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