Thursday, December 07, 2006

Stem Cell Research

I see that in a conscious vote in Parliament, the ban on Stem Cell Research was lifted. The ban was overturned 82-62 or there abouts and shows that there is a mixed feeling on the subject. I personally am glad this has happened as we may be able to reach new areas of research and hence eradicate some (all?) diseases through this avenue of science. However I was happy to see new Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd give a very good summary of the case for “No” and it didn’t involve religious notions of creationism. Instead he stated that he had an uneasy discomfort at human beings creating “a form” of human life and use that form of human life for medical experimentation. That is a true statement and I guess the only case for not doing Stem Cell research was that it was not “God’s intention” and that religious elements skewed the debate. What Rudd is saying here is a moral argument – and you can have morals without being religious – in that we are potentially creating a sub race of human medical slaves. Sure, nobody is going to grow an embryonic stem cell into a grown adult and then dissect them, but it does present the case that we are creating life synthetically… and life, whether conceived naturally or in a Petri dish is still life.

But my personal view is that whilst that’s a valid argument, the benefit of the greater good is that we can perhaps break ground in the quest for curing disease.

Update: Our parliamentary decision has been picked up by Slashdot. Click here for the debate amongst most Americans on this.

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