Abbott lashes out at scientists

August 20, 2006

Scientists are "peddling" hopes of medical breakthroughs without convincing evidence that expanding stem cell research will deliver, Health Minister Tony Abbott says.

Mr Abbott, who is strongly opposed to therapeutic cloning, today lashed out at "evangelical" scientists, accusing them of giving false hopes to sufferers of crippling diseases just to get "a leg up" in their research.

The comments were some of Mr Abbott's strongest on the issue as MPs and senators head towards a conscience vote on overturning the four year ban on therapeutic cloning - the creation of embryos to produce stem cells.

Labor's health spokeswoman Julia Gillard today called for calm and accused the minister of misleading the public.

Mr Abbott's language, she said, "is calculated in my view to misinform the public and to misrepresent this debate".

"I think Tony Abbott as health minister has actually got an obligation to keep the debate calm and keep it focussed on the facts," Ms Gillard told the Ten Network.

"Instead he believes it's his job to run in with the most inflammatory language he can think of.
"No one in federal parliament is advocating human cloning, that is the complete reproduction of human beings."

But the pro-life minister, a devout Catholic, said politicians were being asked to cross a bridge too far.

"People are asking us to cross a very serious ethical bridge for no good reason because there is no strong evidence that this kind of research is actually going to produce the massive breakthroughs that people are claiming," Mr Abbott told ABC television.

"I think what we are seeing at the moment is a lot of peddling of hope, but no great evidence that these new and radical research techniques are actually going to produce the breakthroughs that some of the more evangelical scientists are claiming for them."

Mr Abbott said MPs and senators needed to explain what had changed since parliament voted in 2002 not to allow therapeutic cloning.

He made it clear that he did not trust scientists to steer the debate, saying they would want "a little bit more human cloning in a few years' time".

"Even potential human life needs to be treated with great respect and we shouldn't be willy-nilly creating potential human life just to satisfy the urges of the scientific community," Mr Abbott said.

Two senators are preparing private members' bills intended to end the ban on therapeutic cloning - Australian Democrat Natasha Stott Despoja and Liberal Kay Patterson, a former health minister.

Senator Patterson plans to base the bill on the findings of the expert Lockhart review, which recommended the Government allow scientists to conduct embryonic stem cell research.

Present laws restrict research to spare IVF embryos.

Mr Abbott said he believed a large number of MPs and senators remained undecided on the issue, but acknowledged the influence of the Lockhart report.

"I certainly think the Lockhart review has had an impact on people but I think that the more people think about this the more concerned they will be about just where this might be leading," he said.

Cabinet rejected the Lockhart review's recommendation in June, but Prime Minister John Howard last week bowed to backbench pressure and promised his MPs a conscience vote should any legislation come to parliament.

AAP