HERALD SUN ARTICLES - STOP THE HORROR OF FETAL FARMING

STOP THE HORROR OF FETAL FARMING

HERALD SUN, 3 AUGUST 2006

BABETTE FRANCIS

One justification for Premier Bracks’ $250,000 expenditure on his luxury world tour earlier this year was that he had “secured a historic stem-cell agreement in the US....” (Herald-Sun 16/7/06). Taxpayers are entitled to details of this agreement because of Bracks’ well publicized ambition that Victoria break the states’ agreement with the Federal 2002 legislation banning human cloning. Bracks and Premier Beattie of Queensland, who harbours similar ambitions, are out of step with other state premiers and with Labor Party policy which bans cloning.

What’s behind this ambition? Researchers know stem cells derived from early-stage embryos are of no therapeutic value and may never be used in treating diseases. They are difficult to control and have caused tumours. In contrast, adult and umbilical-cord stem cells have already been used in treating 70 diseases. Furthermore, stem cells with nearly all the versatility of embryonic stem cells - and with none of the ethical or tumour formation problems - are already being derived from nasal mucosa, baby teeth, hair follicles and umbilical cords.

Princeton Law Professor Robert George, who served on President Bush’s Council on Bioethics, suspects the clamour for embryonic stem cell research isn’t about using early embryos but exploiting more fully developed fetuses, 16 to 18 weeks old, when the stem cells would be less likely to grow out of control. “Slate” magazine’s bioethicist, Will Saletan, outlined such a program in his five-part series “The Organ Factory: The Case for Harvesting Older Human Embryos”.

Fortunately, the US Congress has just passed a Bill that would outlaw the grisly practice of “fetal farming”: the Bill makes it a crime to create, acquire or traffic in tissue derived from a human embryo created and grown specifically for tissue harvesting. “Fetal farming” involves human embryos who are specifically implanted in a woman’s womb for the sole purpose of killing them months later for their tissue for research.

However, in Australia we have no such legislation. While it may be difficult to persuade women to have embryos implanted that would later be aborted for research, perhaps tissue from “legally” aborted fetuses is already being used. Or perhaps Bracks who is touting the Lockhart Review recommendations, one of which supported the idea of animal-human hybrids, may support the idea of fetal farming by growing a human embryo in a pig or sheep and then harvesting it for its stem cells when it has reached the appropriate gestational age.

The potential for the exploitation of vulnerable women is enormous - the infamous Dr. Hwang, now being prosecuted in South Korea, coerced women into providing hundreds of eggs. These eggs are obtained by ovarian hyper-stimulation, and in the US where university students have been seduced into providing eggs for monetary payments, some have found their reproductive systems permanently damaged.

In Britain the North East England Stem Cell Institute can offer women undergoing infertility treatments payment for any extra eggs produced in the process. The payment will be a reimbursement for some fertility treatment costs, and the eggs will be used to create human embryos for the purpose of destroying them for their stem cells.

While taxpayers may not begrudge Mr. Bracks his 5-star luxury hotel stays and banquets, we are entitled to know the details of his stem cell agreement. What part of this involves embryo experiments and what part deals with adult stem cell research which is already successful, such as that of Dr. Carlos Lima of Portugal who has treated 7 patients with spinal cord injury with their own stem cells, or that of Dr. Denise Faustman, diabetes researcher from Harvard, who has completely reversed end-stage Juvenile Diabetes in mice and has approval to begin a human clinical trial?

Precious cord blood from newborns, useful in treating a range of conditions, is being discarded in Australia because of lack of funding and storage points in hospitals. This is where Bracks should be spending taxpayers’ money.

BABETTE FRANCIS is co-ordinator of the Endeavour Forum, a counter- feminist, anti-abortion group