Australia and Spain consider new legislation

The debate on cloning and stem cell research is continuing in Australia, with politicians voicing their opinions on how the law should regulate the practices following the publication of the Lockhart Report late last year. The six-member Legislative Review Committee, chaired by John Lockhart, a former Federal Court judge, looked at the law and considered the submissions to a public consultation that ended last September. It recommended that the existing laws on cloning and stem cell research should be relaxed.

In Australia, the Research Involving Human Embryos Act and the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act, both passed in 2002, together ban reproductive cloning, prevent scientists from cloning embryos to obtain stem cells and restrict them to research on surplus IVF embryos created before the acts were passed, and donated by IVF patients who no longer require them. All research must operate under a licensing scheme administered by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The Lockhart Review showed that there was 'clearly overwhelming support from the general public and the medical and scientific communities for maintaining a strong regulatory framework' in the area but also clear support for 'augmentation of the current system to allow research, within a rigorous ethical framework, into emerging scientific practices that will assist in the understanding of disease and disability'. On this basis, the Committee recommended that while human reproductive cloning should be banned, cloning technology should be allowed to be used to produce embryos for stem cell research. The Government, headed by Prime Minister John Howard and known to be divided on the issue, considered the recommendations over the Christmas legislative break, with a view to Parliamentary debates starting in May this year.

Now, Health Minister Tony Abbott has voiced his support for maintaining the existing legislative provisions - however, the Australian media has said that the Industry Minister, Ian McFarlane, will be leading the campaign to change the laws. Democrat Senator Natasha Scott Desposa has said that if the government fails to change the law, she will file a private member's bill and ask for a free vote on the issue. 'A group of us will want to push embryonic stem cell research forward', she said. Other members of Parliament, on both sides of the debate, seem also to be leaning towards a conscience vote on the issue.

In Spain, the Cabinet took the first steps towards approving a new law on assisted reproduction, embryo research and stem cell research, when Elena Salgado, the Minister for Health, presented the bill to them. The bill has already been approved by Congress and must now go to the Senate for final approval. The bill, if passed, will expand the rules that set out the extent to which embryo research can take place in the country, although bans the deliberate creation of embryos for research, as well as cloning for reproductive purposes. 'Social' sex selection and surrogacy will also be banned. So-called 'therapeutic cloning' - the cloning of embryos for research - is not mentioned in the bill, as it is expected instead to be regulated under a new Biomedicine Law, currently under discussion. If passed, the new law will also establish a national registry of gamete donors; any donors can receive 'an economic compensation' for their donation and all donors will have to be anonymous. While PGD was already allowed, the new assisted reproduction bill will extend this to allow Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) typing - in order to select children who can act as cord blood cell donors for an existing sick sibling.