By Christine de Kock
EMBRYONIC stem cell research will get the ‘yes’ vote from Gellibrand MP Nicola Roxon when the bill goes before the House of Representatives.
The Senate passed the bill last week amid controversy that it allowed some embryos to live and others to die.
But others see the research as a scientific breakthrough that in years to come will relieve the effects of diseases such as juvenile diabetes, leukaemia and spinal cord injuries.
Ms Roxon said her decision was based on a moral perspective.
“The perspective I am taking is the potential relief that we might at some time in the future be able to provide to those thousands of people who have various illnesses for which we might find a cure,” she said.
The research involves taking an egg from a human donor, removing the nucleus of the egg and injecting it with a patient’s own DNA.
This then becomes a cloned embryo, and the stem cells are extracted and can be grown for a specific purpose, such as growing insulin-secreting cells to help diabetes suffers.
The bill states that cloned embryos cannot be implanted in humans or animals and the embryos must be destroyed after 14 days. Ms Roxon said there were enough safeguards in place to prevent abuse of the science.
“I think to be fair to people who have different views to mine, people argue over the status of the egg, with the other nerve cells that it has the potential to turn into human life and should be treated like an embryo… treated like a human life.”
Ms Roxon said she often spoke to parents with children who had disabilities and saw the development of this research as benefiting the residents of Gellibrand.
“I think they struggle to meet the needs of their children and want to know what role government can play in assisting them, which is completely legitimate,” she said of such parents.
“So you see the hardship that people go through and I think any of these cures are a long way down the track but there is potential for them.
“Research can be done in a carefully regulated way and I think we want Australian scientists involved in that, rather than having it in countries where you can have cowboy scientists doing all sorts of things.”
