DO NO HARM!

CLONING IS WRONG; CLONING IS UNNECESSARY

STATE CAMPAIGN 2007 – RESOURCES AND ACTION

ACTION:

• Email your own State MP from the ‘Make a Stand’ website
• Make a private visit to your MP so he/she can take your view into account – do it for your children and grandchildren, sot that they can have a ‘human’ future, not a society where human young are manufactured as laboratory material - armed with clear arguments as to why cloning is both wrong and unnecessary.

RESOURCES:

• DO NO HARM – Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research has prepared comprehensive material for each State and Territory Parliament, adapted from our ‘Final Appeal to MPs’.
• As an example of the cover letter going individually to MPs, here is our letter to Queensland MPs.
• As an example of our public argument against the States passing cloning, here is our article in the Sydney Morning Herald from April 2007: “Politicians must guard the gates to the brave new hell of cloning”.
• For those wanting to review the simple outline of the case against cloning – that “Cloning is Wrong, and Cloning is Unnecessary” view again our national newspaper advertisement from 2006.
• Or print off the front page of the website by way of dot-points.

BACKGROUND:

Each State and territory is introducing legislation to mirror the Federal legislation passed last year – by one vote in the Senate.

All States and territories have since 2002 made it a crime punishable by 15 years in prison to create a human embryo by cloning. Making a mockery of our Parliaments’ integrity, the unanimous judgement that such an act is wrong has now morphed into a majority vote to allow the cloning of embryos solely for research.

It remains wrong now, as in 2002, to create a new human existence – by cloning or any other means – with the sole intention of experimenting on it and destroying it.

It remains unjustified and unnecessary to pursue cloning, since the technique remains of unproven value or safety in animal models, and because we are getting the great things of stem cell science without cloning: alternative sources of stem cells – from our own tissues and umbilical cord blood – are proving excellent for both research and human therapy.

And in breaking news, Nature journal has published a method of turning skin cells into ‘embryonic’-like stem cells, which has no ethical concerns, and which will make cloning even more unnecessary.

Cloning is wrong, and cloning is unnecessary. There is no mandate from the Federal debate for the States to be rubber stamps on this issue: there was only one vote in it at the Senate level, and all leaders of the major parties opposed cloning on ethical grounds.

The States are free to reject this inhuman and unnecessary science.

ASK YOUR STATE MP TO SAY ‘NO’ TO CLONING AND ‘YES’ TO THE MAGNIFICENT FIELD OF ADULT STEM CELL RESEARCH

BREAKING NEWS & COMMENTARY:

• Ethical alternative to cloning – major breakthrough published in the leading scientific journal Nature (7 June 2007). This brilliant science could make cloning redundant within a year. DO NO HARM calls for a year’s moratorium on cloning while this alternative method is applied to human cells. Read more…

• The Hon Tony Abbott, Federal  Health Minister, writes in the Daily Telegraph (June 8th 2007) that the cloning debate is primarily ‘about ethics’:

“The embryos and the clones that are to be used for research are, in all material respects, indistinguishable from and every bit as human as the embryos created by assisted reproductive technology, from which some 7,000 babies are born every year in Australia”. Read more…          

• Cardinal George Pell writes in the Sydney Morning herald (June 7th 2007) that the cloning debate is ‘all about human life’:

“The Anglican archbishop of Sydney and the Catholic bishops of NSW continue to oppose such a bill in this state because we are serious about the importance of human life and oppose state sponsorship of the destruction of human life. This is a marker event, and such unethical research is unnecessary.” Read more…

• Adult stem cells – another Australian breakthrough in treating human heart disease – Sydney Morning Herald (May 31 2007). Read more…