| GE Free
New Zealand in Food & Environment, 21st August
2004 "Unfortunately,
it looks like they have only delayed part of their plans for a genetically
engineered eugenic future" said Jon Carapiet from GE Free NZ
in food and environment. "The approval of in-vitro experimentation Analysis of the revised HART bill shows that it will only prohibit the implantation of genetically engineered human embryos in a woman?s womb, but not in-vitro experimentation. In what is appears to be a world-first for any government, our politicians are set to proactively legalise the genetic engineering of human sperm, eggs and human embryos for research purposes. This can even include the genetic engineering of animal genes into human embryos and vice versa to create hybrid animal-human embryos. Human cloning is also to be allowed for research. This policy
is being set without any consideration of a new report due from
the Bio Ethics Council into public attitudes to human genes in other
organisms. This report is be presented to Marian Hobbs on 26 August
at a "Clearly,
the government are not listening to the depth of public concern
and are sidelining the Bio Ethics Council report to push on with
their particular agenda. They are laying the foundations for a future
where some The lessons
must be learnt from the debate around the legalisation of In-Vitro
Fertilisation (IVF) technology in the 1970?s. Critics at the time
pointed out that it would lead to a future of designer babies, which
was HART will allow
the world's most deregulated environment for the use of PGD as the
law fails to set fundamental limits on what can or cannot be genetically
selected for by parents wanting to choose a particular type of Attempts by
the IVF industry and its political supporters to deny that HART
will not eventually lead to the genetic engineering of human babies
cannot be believed given the history of this industry's misleading
denials Clear legislation banning such activities is the only reasonable course of action and the HART bill must be amended. The public can have little confidence in the HART framework of an advisory and ethics committee setting the boundaries on the uses of human assisted reproductive technology. This approach avoids the real democratic issue of why politicians have not fronted up in public to say what they are actually going to legalise. There is a worrying lack of media and academic analysis of this far-reaching legislation to help inform the public of the moral, ethical and spiritual issues so critical to the future. Parliament has no mandate to pass such a far reaching eugenic law that touches upon the very meaning of what it means to be human without the informed consent of the general public. GE Free NZ in
food and environment recognise that there have been some improvements
in this version of HART with mandatory genetic testing having been
dropped, and sex selection limited to cases where it is used to
avoid For the first
time in New Zealand history a committee will draw up a list of types
of human beings who can be targeted for elimination and prevented
from ever existing again in our society. By allowing research into
the "We are making a public call for Parliamentarians not to allow this eugenic future to happen," says Mr Carapiet. "The HART bill must be further amended so that unethical PGD, sex selection and all forms of human genetic engineering and cloning -whether for implantation or research purposes- are permanently prohibited." Contact: Jon Carapiet 021 050 7681 Further references
: |
 |
GE-Free New Zealandin food and environment (RAGE Inc.) |