The large majority of submissions argued against cloning, in light of the new, ethical alternative.
Read all the submissions at: https://legislationreview.nhmrc.gov.au/public_submissions
You can listen to our National Director's comments HERE in an online interview.
The concluding remarks in the submission by Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research:
I trust that we have made the case that the scientific landscape of stem cell science has changed so dramatically since November 2007 that the argument about the ‘unique necessity’ for cloning no longer applies; that if our Senators and MPs had known in 2006 what we know now, cloning would never have been permitted. Arguments for SCNT/cloning are now marginal: its proposed role in mitochondrial disease is demonstrated here as a conceptual error, and the call to create cloned ESCs as a ‘comparison’ to iPSCs, even though we know ESCs are functionally identical to iPSCs, is truly clutching at straws. A sense of proportion – measuring the substantial ethical barrier to the creation of human embryos as mere research material, versus the shrivelled residual arguments for SCNT/cloning – should result in recommendations to repeal this inhuman and unjustified practice.
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