DO NO HARM!

CLONING IS WRONG; CLONING IS UNNECESSARY

• Cloning creates a living human embryo, the near-identical twin of the donor. On that essential truth there must be no scientific and political deception.

• Cloning creates a human embryo solely for research, with its destruction intended - and that is wrong. We must not create one life in order to destroy it for the benefit of another life.

• An embryo is an embryo, no matter how it is made - whether by natural conception, by IVF, or by cloning. The cloned embryo, even though created ‘asexually', is no different in itself to one created ‘sexually' by ‘egg and sperm', and could, like cloned animals, be brought to birth . Don't dehumanize the cloned embryo!

• No matter whether the embryo is destined for research (so-called ‘therapeutic' cloning) or for birth (so-called ‘reproductive' cloning), in both cases a living embryo is cloned by the standard technique of SCNT (somatic cell nuclear transfer). And please, no word games! Cloning is ‘SCNT' and ‘SCNT' is cloning !

• Cloning requires either the harvesting of hundreds of eggs per clone, commercialising women's ovaries and risking their health, or using animal eggs to make a human-animal hybrid - and that is wrong.

· Cloning for research will perfect the technique needed for cloning for live-birth and for fetal organ harvesting. While this will remain illegal in Australia , live-birth cloning is being attempted overseas and cloned-fetus farming is being promoted in major journals. Further abuses of this sort can only occur if we permit and perfect the first steps in cloning.

• If cloning was so clearly wrong in 2002, when the Federal Parliament unanimously banned cloning , how can it be ‘right' in 2006? Nothing significant has changed in the science, or in valid polls of public opinion, and nothing can change in the ethics of ‘creating in order to destroy'.

• Although cloning must be rejected as ethically wrong, the great consolation is that we do not need it. We will still get the great benefits of stem cell science without cloning.

· Stem cells obtained ethically from adult tissue and umbilical cord blood are used in 72 human conditions already – embryonic stem cells in NONE, despite the hype , remaining unusable and dangerous.

• Cloning is being left ‘impractical and irrelevant' in serious scientific opinion. Cloning lacks basic ‘proof of principle' in animals, while adult stem cell advances even in Australia are proving safe and effective in humans, both for research and therapies.

· Research on cloning would squander the very limited funds which could otherwise have been spent on treatments for humans using adult stem cells.

• Cloning is wrong; cloning is unnecessary. Let us lead the world in stem cell research that is both effective and ethical – research we can all live with.