Mr. Speaker, what we have here is a good example of the complexities of the bill and of how individual members of parliament will look at it differently.
I said earlier in my speech that it is dangerous and wrong to divide this along pro-life/pro-choice lines. I believe we can deal with aspects of the bill. We may not be able to deal with the bill but we still have a responsibility to try.
The comment about Copernicus and Galileo is still an apt comment. Copernicus was threatened to be burned at the stake if he continued to make his scientific observations. He recanted and refused his scientific observations and continued to make them in secret. Other astronomers of his age continued, even under pressure from the church or state, to make them in secret. The pressure did not prevent or stop them from looking. It did not close their eyes or their minds.
We cannot prevent this. We can control and regulate it and should use the powers of parliament to do that in a common sense and judicious manner.
I do not care to indulge in a debate of whether it should be 14 or 28 days because it does not have to be part of this debate. We can take discarded fertile cells that have been fertilized in vitro or use other processes and other ways to get stem cells without using embryos. Let us look at that possibility.
As for the sanctity and protection of human life, I do not believe that is part of this debate. This debate is about whether we will look at what I recommended earlier, dividing the bill into two parts. Should we look at stem cell research in one part and assisted human reproduction in another? The bill warrants being divided.
Certainly we cannot ignore it any more than people ignored the fact that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around. We cannot suppress knowledge. We can control knowledge and science to act in a moral and ethical manner but we cannot stop people or their minds from working.
We have the opportunity, if done in the right way, to find a cure for cancer. There are people who sit in this Chamber who are only here because of stem cell research. Are we saying that somehow we should make the decision as to whether they can be here or not? We had better ask ourselves that question. If we answer that we should make that decision, then I believe we have exceeded our powers as parliamentarians.
This is not about the power of life or death of discarded in vitro embryos or other ways to access stem cells such as through umbilical cord blood. This is about whether we will take a step that is controlled to find a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis or the ability to grow a kidney for our sons or daughters who may need it from their own stem cells.
We do not have the right as parliamentarians to say no to that process. We have the right to regulate the process so that it fits within our moral and ethical thoughts and jurisdictions. We do not have the right to say no to it.