Cloning Bill Passes Parliament
Last minute action by Sydney Anglicans like Nigel Fortescue has failed to stop the Australian parliament late last night from overturning its ban on cloning human embryos for scientific research.
Although Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition leader Kevin Rudd both backed continuing the ban, the final vote was an anti-climax, reports AAP, with MPs electing not to call a division.
Yesterday the office of Archbishop Peter Jensen sent a pastoral letter to all Sydney Anglican clergy encouraging them ‘to write or telephone your local member’ expressing opposition to the Bill.
Mr Fortescue from Naremburn-Cammeray Anglican Church was on the phone to the office of his local MP, Joe Hockey. (Not when pictured!)
“This bill allows a radical departure from current practices and an unethical expansion of medical research. It allows medical researchers to embark on a new course that can be shown to be unethical from both a Christian and un-Christian world view,” Mr Fortescue says.
For the whole article see http://your.sydneyanglicans.net/sydneystories/last_minute_action_fails_on_cloning/