Sydney
1 Dec 2002
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St Cecilia’s children go ‘bush’ for the day
Radical bid for men-only teaching job offers
Crackerjack way to see charity in action
Destruction of human life for profit - research fear
Fr John says ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’
Real meaning of Christmas
Perth statue: Archbishop orders inquiry
... deported, then disappeared or dead
Avoid war at all costs: Caritas
Christmas Bowl gets helping hand from a Leunig angel
Govt bows to Church pressure
A walk against war
Persecution: UN should be forced to act
Casting a NET to reach young adults, older kids
Tom Singer, lost in a ‘coward’s war’
Asylum seeker kids allowed to attend Catholic school
Editorial: When aid is misused
Letters: Breadwinners?
Conversation: Terry Underwood, Ambassador, Year of the Outback
Reflections: US bishops pose questions on Iraq
Kids go ‘bush’ at St Cecilia’s to help drought victims
It’s ‘family first’ for SOS (son of Sergio)
Dad had to face racism on field
Retreat helps with the healing
Love of books pays off for coastal school
‘Greedy people’ let the needy go without
Third degree burns
Destruction of human life for profit - research fear
A bill described as “authorising the destruction of human life for profit” will return to the Senate for debate on December 2.
Dr Warwick Neville, research fellow for the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, says the Research Involving Embryo Bill 2002 will allow surplus IVF embryos to be used for experimentation for stem cell research.
“This bill makes available embryos from childless couples that will now become human guinea pigs for profit,” he said, adding that, by contrast, there are no ethical problems with using adult stem cells for research.
“Medically, it’s the way to go,” he said.
“There are no tissue rejection problems because the cells are taken from the same patient being treated.
“However, there are numerous rejection problems associated with using tissues derived from embryonic stem cells.”
Dr Neville says the embryo research bill “is far more dangerous” than the Prohibition of Human Cloning Bill.
“Even the Prime Minister recognises this,” he said. “Ethically, legally, this is the more contentious bill.”
Queensland Labor Senator John Hogg says there is no need to destroy any IVF embryos for any reason whatsoever, no matter what their fate might otherwise be.
He said he and his colleagues had been heartened by letters of support from the public.
“I believe - I have no reason not to believe - that I commenced life as an embryo,” he told the Senate.
“My distinctiveness, my uniqueness, commenced then. It did not commence at some stage down the track.
“It commenced at my conception.”
He said the crucial question in this bill “is the dignity of human life itself. Most people in the debate would at least agree with the fact that we are dealing with human life, but there is a divergence of opinion on the respect and worth to be attributed to the human life at its various stages of development”.
Embryos from IVF and assisted reproductive technology were collected to create human life, the senator said.
“They were collected in the first instance to create life for couples who had difficulty or found it impossible to conceive naturally,” he said.
“The early and only hopes of the IVF program were to give couples the opportunity to have children. It was about giving life.
“The surplus embryos were never a by-product of the process to be eyed off for other purposes.”
Senator Hogg said scientists, commercial enterprises, big business and entrepreneurs all wanted to exploit human life.
“My argument is that life has a worth from conception right through,” he said.
“All that changes is the quality of life.
“I believe it is the responsibility of this Senate to take some difficult decisions to ensure that when future generations look back on us, they will see that we had the good sense to respect humanity and the dignity of human life in particular.”
Queensland National Party Senator Ron Boswell was also in favour of scrapping the bill.
“Members of the parliament have been presented with an ‘either/or’ scenario: Either ‘we pass the bill or so-and-so will die’ or ‘little Johnny will never walk again’,” Senator Boswell told the Senate.
“That has been a sword at everyone’s throat. It has not been pleasant for anyone. No one in this Parliament has a monopoly on compassion,” he said.
“Even as we debate this legislation, there are new advances in adult stem cell therapy.
“The rubbishing of adult stem cell therapy in the debate is disturbing.
It has many runs on the board.”
Reprinted from the Catholic Leader