Australian senators signalled in an intial vote on Tuesday that a ban on the use of cloned human embryos for stem cell research is likely to be overturned, the purpose of the bill is to legalise therapeutic cloning.
Prime Minister John Howard has allowed a rare conscience vote on the controversial issue, giving senators and members of parliament the freedom to vote outside party lines.
In an initial vote on Tuesday a private members’ bill seeking to legalise therapeutic cloning won by 34 votes to 31 before the senate moved to discussion of proposed amendments.
The bill would allow researchers to clone human embryos to extract their stem cells in the hope of one day finding cures for debilitating diseases.
Cloned embryos would have to be destroyed within 14 days and could not be implanted in a woman.
Existing laws allow stem cells to be harvested only from surplus IVF embryos.
The new bill provoked intense and sometimes emotional debate in the senate, with government senator Julian McGauran warning of a nightmarish future in which scientists could produce human-animal hybrids.
“It has all the pride equal to a Nuremberg rally — a rally of Dr Strangeloves chanting for such weird experiments as the creation of hybrid embryos, mixing humans with animals.”
But Democrats senator Andrew Murray said he trusted that safeguards would prevent such horrors.