AUSTRALIAN SENATE PASSES CLONING BILL

By a vote of 34 to 32, the upper house of the Australian parliament has opened the door to the legalisation of therapeutic cloning. A private member's bill appears likely to pass in the House of Representatives as well, although possibly with amendments. One of the leading lobbyists for cloning, Professor Bernie Tuch, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney,

The bill's critics saw things differently. In an emotional debate about potentiality, 34 senators discerned this elusive quality in the promises of miracle technology but failed to see it in human embryos. The bill's opponents appealed to their colleagues' sense of consistency: little had changed in the basic science, so why should Parliament alter a law which it had approved unanimously only four years before? (Embryonic stem cell research became legal in 2002, after the longest debate in the history of the Australian parliament, but a moratorium was declared on cloning.)

This argument failed. Embryonic stem cell science in Australia has been surfing an unstoppable tsunami of hope. Its supporters even managed to frame their lack of clinical success as an argument in their favour. If we had the resources, they argued, then we would surely deliver the goods. Opposition to the bill on ethical grounds was also tarred as a Christian, and especially as a Catholic, obsession. This poisoned it for many secular-minded MPs.

Public opinion had clearly shifted, perhaps due to a campaign by supporters of the research which began directly after the last bill was passed in 2002. The word "cloning" no longer sent frissons of disgust down the spines of MPs. In its original version, the bill's fine print specifically authorised the creation of embryos using eggs from aborted foetuses, but this provision was simply shrugged off or ignored by senators. The bill's opponents did manage to delete from the bill a provision authorising the creation of animal- human hybrids. But Professor Alan Trounson, of Monash University, Australia's best-known stem cell scientist, is already complaining that this will limit research.

Surrogacy surprise: Another factor which had hitherto passed unnoticed was blazoned on the front pages of newspapers this week: parliamentarians' personal involvement in reproductive technology. A leading figure in the Opposition Labor Party, Senator Stephen Conroy, announced that he and his wife had engaged an egg donor and a surrogate mother for their new child. His wife, a 38-year-old public affairs manager for Alcoa, was unable to bear children after ovarian cancer. In Senator Conroy's home state of Victoria, surrogacy is virtually illegal, so he stepped over the border into New South Wales. Now the Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, says that the Conroy case shows that state and Federal laws on surrogacy need to be harmonised -- and presumably liberalised.   

BRITISH O&G DOCTORS BACK
   NON-VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA FOR CHILDREN

Killing disabled infants should be an option, says the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology in the UK. In a submission to an inquiry by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics about prolonging the lives of newborn babies, the College says that "active euthanasia" should be part of the range of management options for "the sickest of newborns". At the moment, euthanasia is clearly illegal in Britain, although supporters claim that paediatricians already kill disabled babies.

A very disabled child can mean a disabled family," says the College. "If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late abortions, as some parents would be more confident about continuing a pregnancy and taking a risk on outcome."

The London Times had no difficulty finding prominent doctors and ethicists who were prepared to back the proposal. One of these was John Harris, a member of the Blair government's Human Genetics Commission and professor of bioethics at Manchester University. "We can terminate for serious foetal abnormality up to term but cannot kill a newborn. What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it okay to kill the foetus at one end of the birth canal but not at the other?" he said.

However, Dr John Wyatt, a neonatologist at University College London hospital, opposed the idea: "Intentional killing is not part of medical care. The majority of doctors and health professionals believe that once you introduce the possibility of intentional killing into medical practice you change the fundamental nature of medicine. It immediately becomes a subjective decision as to whose life is worthwhile."

If a doctor can decide whether a life is worth living, he said, "it changes medicine into a form of social engineering where the aim is to maximise the benefit for society and minimise those who are perceived as worthless".

Ethical defence: The College's proposal has coincided with a defence of involuntary infant euthanasia in The Netherlands in the Journal of Medical Ethics, a British publication with a utilitarian bent. Bertha Alvarez Manninen, of Arizona State University, argues that Dutch doctors have formulated sensible and prudent guidelines for killing disabled infants in the Groningen Protocol. "These infants are terminally ill; modern medicine can do nothing to save them," she writes. "Continued existence is of no benefit to them; rather death is often looked upon as a much prayed for blessing... if we truly care about their best interests, we will deliver them from their suffering sooner rather than later." ~ London Times, Nov 5; Journal of Medical Ethics, November   

FINANCIAL SECRETS

Good practice for scientific publications requires authors to reveal any competing interests so that readers can consider whether there may be any bias in the research or the way in which it is presented. Nature, like many other journals, requires authors to declare patent applications and any other financial or other competing interests, but Gene Watch argues that scientists are not following the rules. ~ politics.co.uk, Nov 2   

ANOTHER BLOT ON THE COPYBOOK?

According to the university's vice-chancellor for research, Robert Hall, someone involved with the project might have digitally altered as many as eight images in the Science article. There were three co-authors with Roberts, but all of them have left the university. The university is conducting an inquiry. ~ Columbia Tribune, Nov 2; New Scientist, Nov 4; The Maneater, Nov 3   

SOLDIERS TO BE ASKED TO DONATE SPERM

British soldiers, police, firemen and footballers are being targeted as potential sperm donors as the fertility industry scrambles to top up its dwindling stocks. Now that donor anonymity has been abolished in the UK, nearly all IVF clinics are reporting shortages, according to the Independent newspaper. In Scotland there is only one donor. As well, the quality of sperm appears to be falling, so out of 100 men interested in donating, only five will have sperm healthy enough to use. The National Gamete Donation Trust, a government-funded body for recruiting donors, says that it would like to target places where "men congregate", such as rugby matches and army bases.

There are other initiatives, too. Care, Britain's biggest chain of IVF clinics, will be marketing sperm sharing: a free cycle of IVF treatment worth US$4,750 to a couple if the man agrees to become a sperm donor. Of course, even if his wife's treatment is unsuccessful, he still faces the prospect of a knock on the door by an offspring in the distant future. It could be quite stressful. A fertility entrepreneur, John Gonzalez, is taking advantage of the hazards of service in Iraq and Afghanistan to offer free sperm storage to soldiers who donate to his sperm bank. War widows can legally use their partner's sperm to impregnate themselves if the soldier had given his consent. ~ Independent, Nov 4   

IN BRIEF: sex selection; deep freeze

Sex selection 2: Britain's best-known IVF expert, Professor Lord Robert Winston, has backed sex selection for "family balancing". "I think there are a lot of shibboleths to which we have paid lip service, but when you analyse them they certainly don't threaten the moral fabric of our society," he told the Sunday Herald. "And one of them is sex selection. I think if sex selection was freely available in Britain it would change the balance of society hardly at all, if at all." ~ Sunday Herald, Nov 5

Rescued from deep freeze: A Spanish woman has given birth to a baby from a donated embryo which had been frozen for 13 years in a Barcelona IVF clinic. The news is expected to give fresh impetus to researchers who claim that thousands of embryos are being destroyed every year because Britain lacks an embryo adoption program. ~ London Times, Nov 4   

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