Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise for a second time in debate, at the second reading of Bill C-56. In my initial remarks on the bill, I outlined at some length my objections to the approach taken, or rather not taken, in the bill to the protection of embryos from manipulation and destruction in the process of research.
I suggested, as have many of my colleagues, that the government take note of the enormous potential presented to medical science through the experimentation with and research on adult stem cells. By adult stem cells, I mean essentially non-embryonic, non-fetal stem cells. Even stem cells taken from the umbilical cords of newborn babies provide enormous potential for the sort of scientific advances that the advocates of embryonic stem cell research seem so interested in.
I would like to yet again endorse the principle of the Standing Committee on Health in its report: that stem cells ought only to be harvested from living embryos if there is clearly no other option. That high standard set by the all party committee is not reflected in the legislation before the House today.
In fact the legislation today takes no position. Rather, it leaves this matter entirely in the hands of a self-governing agency, which will presumably be made up, in part, of research scientists who, frankly, have a professional and personal interest in the acquisition and manipulation of embryonic stem cells, whose first and greatest concern when they approach this tremendously sensitive matter is not necessarily the moral consideration of the sanctity of human life but rather the utilitarian ethical framework that governs the drive of so many scientists to use life for the purposes of research.
In those earlier remarks, I also suggested that the government should be proposing at least a three year moratorium on embryonic stem cell research in order to allow the scientific community more time to demonstrate the enormous advantages presented by non-embryonic stem cell research.
In fact I would go a step further and suggest that the government, if indeed its objective as stated in the bill is to in part advance such research, ought to be increasing funding to and making a high priority of the development of non-embryonic stem cell research, so that three years hence we could as a parliament revisit the question of whether in fact embryos must be created, collected, manipulated and destroyed in order, purportedly, to advance medical science.
In that speech I also responded to the point raised by the hon. Minister of Health in her remarks in defence of the bill when she first introduced it, at which time she said that if embryos created and frozen for in vitro fertilization purposes are not at some point used for research or implanted in their mother's uterus, at some point they are thrown in “the garbage”. She suggested, I think erroneously, that these were the only alternatives: either research or, as she would have characterized it, wanton destruction of these nascent human lives.
I think that she and her advisers fundamentally have missed a third option, which is for us to embrace and promote the emerging new field of embryonic adoption. At first that sounds like a somewhat absurd idea, but indeed it is not.
Let me just address three reasons. The strongest pragmatic objection would be, as the minister has said, that these conceived embryos simply are thrown in the garbage. Let me offer three arguments against this.
First, if there are a significant number of embryos left over at in vitro fertilization clinics, then the real question is not what to do with extra embryos but why so many extra embryos are being created in the first place. At a minimum under this legislation, IVF clinics should be restricted to producing the least possible number of embryos necessary to result in successful conception. Research to allow IVF clinics to reduce the number of embryos that have to be created for successful implantation should be promoted vigorously. Clinics that seem to be producing too many embryos should be sanctioned by the agency. This is an entirely legitimate point, because many researchers have provided evidence to the Standing Committee on Health that IVF clinics are producing far more embryos than are necessary for implantation. This raises some very serious ethical concerns.
Ideally, every embryo created by IVF could be implanted successfully in the womb. This should be the goal of IVF research and undoubtedly some day the technology will improve to the point where this is the case. When this occurs there will be no leftover spare embryos to speak of. At that point, does the minister envisage biotech firms and research labs suddenly deciding that they do not need or want embryonic stem cells any more? No, instead they will still want embryos to be created, but this time solely for research purposes. Already scientists are saying that the bill is too restrictive and that if we are really to have success with the research we will need therapeutic cloning as well.
Therefore, the minister's position that the only embryos being used are leftover embryos that would otherwise be destroyed is in fact a red herring. On the one hand, improving the technology eventually will reduce or eliminate the supply of extra IVF embryos. On the other hand, the government is creating a demand in the research community and the biotech industry for embryonic stem cells. If the supply of IVF embryos is choked off, they will be back in a few years demanding that the government allow new embryos to be created or cloned solely for research.
Second, I would argue on moral grounds that allowing non-implanted embryos to die need not imply a lack of dignity. It is far more dignified to let human beings who cannot survive without artificial support die naturally than it is to destroy them while stripping them down for spare parts. Even in the case of dying people donating organs, medical ethics requires that we wait until they are brain dead and therefore no longer capable of consciousness before organs are removed. Even then, the rest of the body is disposed of with great dignity and care. An embryo is not a dead body but a living human being. It can be nothing else: it is a living being of human parentage. It is a living human being. It is more in keeping with its dignity that if an embryo is outside of the womb and cannot survive by natural means it be allowed to die rather than simply be used as an object for research. What I am suggesting is that what the minister so eloquently described as throwing in the garbage need not be the means of disposal of these human embryos. A natural death is a natural death at any stage of human life.
Third, there is another alternative to allowing an embryo to die or using it for research, to which I alluded earlier, that is, the growing support for embryonic adoption. The government's overall purpose in this bill is to provide hope and to help infertile couples. If that is truly the government's objective, then surely rather than promoting the use of spare IVF embryos for research the government should encourage couples who successfully conceive through IVF to donate them to other infertile couples in the same situation.
Last summer when the U.S. senate was gripped by the same question we are now facing, one of the senators who favoured embryonic stem cell research argued that destroying an embryo was not ending a life. He held up a piece of paper and drew a tiny dot on it with a pencil saying that was how big an embryo was, but there was a couple providing testimony that day who had, crawling around the committee room, a live baby who had been born through the process of embryonic adoption. Many hundreds of children have been born thanks to the gift of an embryo from a fertile couple to a completely infertile couple.
In closing, I would ask that the government please not open this door to using a utilitarian, relativistic ethic to justify the creation of life in order to allow its manipulation and destruction when other dignified and life giving options, such as embryonic adoption, are available to us.