Does anyone know history of law on human cloneing / stem cell (embryo) research in AUS?

Question

Im trying to find out what the first laws relating to human stem cell and embryo research were, both internationally and in Australia. Please help??? Sources appreciated.

Answer 1

The rapid development of assisted reproductive technology (ART) coupled with other developments in biotechnology and medical research in the 1990s raised significant ethical issues, such as what forms of human reproduction would be acceptable and what uses of human embryos for research should be permitted.

In response to these issues, the Commonwealth Government passed the Prohibition on Human Cloning Act 2002 (Cth) (the PHC Act) and the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002 (Cth) (the RIHE Act) to provide a national framework for regulation in this area. The two Acts prohibited a number of reproductive practices, including human cloning and the creation of human embryos (except for the purposes of assisting pregnancy). These prohibitions extended to therapeutic cloning, and made certain practices in relation to therapeutic cloning criminal offences.

Therapeutic cloning includes the process of transferring the nucleus of a human cell into an egg cell whose nucleus has been removed for the purpose of creating embryonic clones (also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer) from which embryonic stem cells (ESCs) may be extracted. Scientists consider that the cultivation of human ESCs through therapeutic cloning will pave the way for significant breakthroughs in the search for cures against several diseases. ESCs derived from therapeutically cloned embryos are considered preferable in research to embryos created through fertilisation of a female egg by male sperm, because cells can be exactly matched to a patient or engineered to have a certain genotype.

Prior to the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Act 2006 (Cth), (the amending Act), the PHC and RIHE Acts restricted research with ESCs to those harvested from embryos created through ART to assist pregnancy, which were no longer needed for that purpose (excess ART embryos).

Here is a link with all the data I think you need