Australia must not allow embryos to be stockpiled,  says Anglican Archbishop, Dr Peter Jensen

Sydney’s Anglican Archbishop, Dr Peter Jensen is calling on Assisted Reproductive Technology centres around Australia to develop technology to freeze sperm and eggs separately. This, he says, would avoid the stockpiling of human embryos, which has led to the Senate’s controversial decision to allow experimentation on surplus IVF embryos.

“I commend the leaders of the Government and the Opposition for allowing a conscience vote on this matter. I also offer my thanks to all the members of the parliament who made their votes after serious consideration of the issue.

“I am however, very disappointed with the outcome of the Senate’s decision which can only be described as dangerous and unethical.

“In allowing destructive research to take place on human subjects without their consent, our government is now in breach of a number of important ethical codes including the Nuremberg Code (1946) and the Declaration of Helsinki (1964).

“The Australian parliament has also reversed the decision it made less than twenty years ago in its inquiry into the Human Embryo Experimentation Bill, that the respect due to the embryo means there must be a prohibition of destructive research.”

Dr Jensen also expressed concern that the bill does not restrict research on embryos to human stem cell therapies, but that toxicology testing may be permissible under this legislation.
“I think we can all agree that it is not a desirable situation to have thousands of human embryos in storage, that are going to be discarded. But what this bill does, in giving research centres access to these embryos, is to create a demand for human embryos.

What is going to happen when the embryos created before April 5th run out? Now that this precedent has been set, what will we do with excess embryos from ART that were created after April 5th and continue to be created?

“As a community we need to grieve the loss of so many lives, whether they are destroyed through destructive research or whether they are permitted to succumb. After we have acknowledged this, we must then move on in the right direction and ensure that embryos are not stockpiled, so that we will never again have to ask this question about what to do with so many embryos.”

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Margaret Rodgers
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Jeremy Halcrow
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