Western Australia Rejects Clone and Kill Bill

A bill that would have allowed researchers to go ahead with experiments to create genetically "matched" stem cells for patients, considered the holy grail of embryonic research, was voted down by the Legislative Council of Western Australia.

PERTH, Australia (LifeSiteNews) - A bill that proposed to allow the creation of cloned human beings for research has been voted down by Western Australia's Legislative Council.

The bill would have allowed researchers to go ahead with experiments to create genetically "matched" stem cells for patients, considered the holy grail of embryonic research. Stem cells taken from embryos create serious medical problems when they are implanted into the bodies of patients due to the problem of the body's immune system rejection of foreign tissue. They have also been shown to create cancerous tumours. Scientists have theorized that cells taken from clones of patients would avoid this problem.

But recent breakthroughs in the creation of stem cells from adult somatic (body) cells have rendered the theory obsolete, according to leading embryo researchers. Ian Wilmut, the creator of the cloned sheep Dolly, had applied to the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to create clones for stem cell retrieval, but has since repudiated such experiments as unnecessary.

The shift in opinion came after a major research breakthrough was achieved by Japanese and US researchers last November in which adult skin cells were "reprogrammed" to become cells that behave like embryonic stem cells. Like stem cells derived from a clone, these "induced pluripotent stem" (iPS) cells are also genetically matched to the patient.

The defeated bill was identified by pro-life advocates as textbook "clone-and-kill" legislation. It proposed to "allow for the creation of embryos by means other than fertilisation [by cloning] and the use of those embryos for research".

The only restriction the bill proposed was that the creation of these clones must be "subject to the same strict licensing" as that applied to "spare" embryos created in IVF labs. It included the now-standard caveat, decided early on by a consortium of pro-embryo research bioethicists, that such embryos must be killed before they were 14 days old and would not be allowed to be implanted in the womb.

The bill was opposed by several Western Australia legislators who said it had been rendered out-of-date because of the iPS discovery.

Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research praised the outcome, saying those who voted against the bill had decided "that there is no point enacting laws for a science that is now dead and gone."

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