OTTAWA: Chretien To Push Cloning Bill Through House

[Murray Charters <mcharters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chretien to push cloning bill through House

By Norma Greenaway
The Ottawa Citizen
Monday, March 31, 2003

The Chretien Liberals are poised to use their parliamentary majority
to force final Commons approval - possibly as early as this week - of
proposed legislation that would ban human cloning, but allow
controversial stem cell research on human embryos.

The Liberals beat back last- ditch opposition efforts, backed by some
Liberal backbenchers, to forbid embryonic stem cell research as they
pushed through a last-minute amendment that would allow compensation
for lost wages to surrogates.

Critics decried the Liberal move as tantamount to commercializing
human life.

"It's too bad," Canadian Alliance MP Rob Merrifield said. "That
really does open the system up to commodification."

The government did not, however, get its way on another key issue.
MPs narrowly voted to support rebel Liberal MP Paul Szabo's proposal
to make psychological counselling mandatory for anyone turning to
surrogacy, in vitro fertilization and other forms of assisted human
reproduction to have a baby. The original legislation only required
fertility clinics to offer such counselling.

The votes were conducted last week as MPs weighed in on the Commons
health committee's final version of the Assisted Human Reproduction
Act. Among other things, the legislation would ban human cloning and
the creation of embryos in vitro for the purpose of research, and
prohibit payments to egg and sperm donors. It also establishes an
agency to license, monitor and enforce the legislation.

In the end, MPs voted 120-93 in favour of the bill as amended,
clearing the way for third and final reading this week.

Some MPs expect the government to force a vote in the Commons as
early as Thursday, considering its majority and expectations any
Liberal defections will be offset by pockets of Alliance, Bloc and
possibly Tory support from the opposition benches. The NDP is
expected to oppose the legislation after losing bids to ensure gender
parity on the governing agency's 13-member board of directors and to
tighten conflict of interest rules for the board.

© Copyright  The Ottawa Citizen

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