Posted on 11/10/2006 8:02:09 AM PST by presidio9
Australia's Senate narrowly voted to end the country's four-year ban on cloning human embryos for stem cell research, ruling Tuesday that the potential for medical breakthroughs outweighed moral doubts.
The decision - a rare conscience vote in a country where lawmakers are expected to follow the party line - sets the stage for the ban to be lifted entirely. The measure now goes to Australia's House of Representatives, but lawmakers had expected the Senate to pose the biggest hurdle.
The Senate voted 34 to 32 to allow therapeutic cloning, which involves removing the nucleus of an unfertilized human egg and adding DNA to make it grow in a lab dish.
Scientists had been lobbying for lawmakers to relax rules on stem cell research and allow therapeutic cloning of embryos for medical research. Since Parliament passed Australia's first laws on stem cell research in 2002, scientists have only been allowed to extract stem cells from spare embryos created for in vitro fertilization.
Sen. Natasha Stott-Despoja, a member of the opposition Australian Democrats, praised the vote. "We have done the right thing and created the opportunity for great research to be undertaken," she said.
Opponents warned that the technology could be abused and lead to human cloning and the creation of animal-human hybrids.
Sen. Grant Chapman, from the ruling Liberal Party, likened research that would be allowed under the new legislation to human experiments conducted by Nazi Germany.
"Experiments which subject the zygote, or embryo, to any significant risk are the ethical equivalent of the infamous medical experiments that we're
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.washingtontimes.com ...
Sickening.
scary days are ahead
I can hear the dems now...
We are gonna "lose out" to the Australians!!
I will just tell them to move to Australia.
Josepf Menegele would be happy, were he not burnt crisp in Hell.
Yep.
The State of Missouri gave them permission.
Sneaking onto FR for a minute - this is horrible.
Maybe we should start cloning politicians for use in research. Better yet, maybe we can use the originals. :)
The space aliens who are altering our genetic structure for their own purposes are pleased.
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We talk about the Muslims being the religion of death but it looks like we are no different. Because of Missouri and the dems we will be doing the same thing as Australia.And you can bet many Christians played their part of voting in Missouri for this frankenstein experiments.
BTT 4 L8R
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