I will try again. The amendments previously moved related to regulation, oversight and accountability. I wanted to move the discussion on to a different part of the bill: the techniques of mitochondrial donation that are permitted by this bill. I need to set up a little bit, for my arguments, a brief explanation of those techniques. There are five that are outlined in this bill. Broadly speaking, as is clear in the explanatory memorandum, those five techniques can be divided into two different types.
One type, including the pronuclear transfer method and the second polar body transfer method, relates to making the mitochondrial donation after the fertilisation of two different eggs. In that situation, two eggs are provided: one from the expectant mother and one from the donor mother. Sperm, of course, are provided from the father, and those two eggs are fertilised. Once that fertilisation occurs, a zygote—personally, I would refer to it as an embryo, but the bill refers to it as a zygote—is formed and mitochondria are transferred between the two fertilised eggs at that stage. Following that process, one of those zygotes, or embryos, is discarded before the other embryo is implanted through normal IVF techniques, hopefully for a live birth. That’s one type of those techniques, which include the second polar body transfer and the pronuclear transfer.
The other type of techniques—most commonly the maternal spindle transfer method—makes the mitochondrial donation before the fertilisation of the eggs. In the same way, two eggs are harvested, from the expectant mother and the donor mother. The mitochondrial transfer occurs at that stage. One of those eggs is then discarded, and the other egg proceeds to be fertilised, there’s the creation of the zygote and there’s implantation through IVF, and a live birth, hopefully, ensues.
As was outlined in the second reading speech, some view these two different types of techniques as having quite different ethical implications. In the first type of technique—most commonly the pronuclear transfer technique—there is the creation of an embryo, or a zygote, for the sole purpose of being used as an instrument to help another life, another embryo, and it is then destroyed. That particular life, as I would call it—but if others want to call it a zygote, then that particular zygote—has no potential, no plan and no possibility of becoming a life in and of itself. It is created only for the purposes of trying to improve, in this case, the life of another.
Some of us have ethical issues with the potential of using one life as an instrument or tool to help save other lives. Of course, this occurs at a very early stage of life, but, as was outlined in the second reading speech, there’s no scientific distinction between the conception or creation of a zygote and other stages of life. No discontinuity has been identified by science such that at that point, this is something and, at the other point, this is something else. All the chromosomes and all the potential for life are there at conception; once conception occurs, it is, potentially, a viable life under the appropriate nurture and conditions.
Some of my colleagues, in discussing these issues, have said it would be better at the trial stage to start with the techniques that have fewer ethical implications and fewer concerns for many Australians. So, in a second, I will move amendments on sheet 1518 which seek to simply remove those two techniques—the pronuclear transfer technique and the second polar body transfer technique—that would of necessity involve the destruction, in my view, of a life. I know from discussions I’ve had with others around these issues that there is a view that removing those types would limit, and possibly obstruct, the development of mitochondrial donation techniques; however, I do not think that accords with the evidence. Some have even put the case that it’s pronuclear transfer and the embryonic transfer of mitochondria that have shown more success and that, therefore, we must keep that in the bill, because there are only limited possibilities of the egg transfer method—the maternal spindle transfer method—being successful. I don’t think that accords with the evidence at all.
Unfortunately, in this debate, when the government and others have put forward their support of this bill, a lot of the time it’s been very much through an assertion of certain facts, like the one I just provided: that maternal spindle transfer is somehow a failed technique or uncertain and may not work. In fact, a report released very recently in a medical journal called Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, titled ‘The regulation of mitochondrial replacement techniques around the world’, looked at all the different techniques around the world, including pronuclear transfer and maternal spindle transfer, and the regulatory environments around the world. As has been discussed, only the UK has specifically legalised mitochondrial donation techniques. But the report identified that, around the world, there had actually been three births from using the techniques outlined in this bill, although they were not always used for mitochondrial donation. There have apparently been live births, according to these scientists, in Mexico, in Greece and in Ukraine, in the past four or five years. Two of those three live births involved the use of maternal spindle transfer techniques—the technique involving the transfer of genetic material at the egg stage. Only one of the three used the pronuclear transfer technique. The government and proponents of this bill are saying the pronuclear transfer technique must be included because it’s the only way we can do it, or the most prospective way we can do it. Well, that’s not the evidence around the world.
I should say for full information that, of those three live births, only one was from mitochondrial donation. That was the birth in Mexico. In the case in Greece—which was done with Spanish scientists—and in the case in Ukraine, the genetic transfer techniques were actually used to overcome infertility issues in the mother—that is, the same techniques were used to transfer genetic material to correct for infertility defects. Others have referred to this in the debate: the only live birth that actually occurred to overcome mitochondrial disease occurred in Mexico, and that was using a technique that involved the transfer of material between eggs, not embryos. That technique, according to this article, was a maternal spindle transfer. It was the technique that the amendments I’ll move propose to leave in this bill, leaving it possible to start research and trials with that technique.
It seems to me that, given the revolutionary and novel techniques we are legalising here, we should start with those techniques that have been the most prospective and raised the fewest ethical issues and we should see how that goes first. The government or others could always come back and seek to legalise the other techniques if maternal spindle transfer—the egg transfer technique—does not prove viable. Again, while these amendments go a little bit further than what many other senators have proposed previously, they do not in any way stop the progression of the development of mitochondrial techniques. They just seek to prioritise the development of those techniques that have been proven so far to be the most successful—or, at least, the ones that have been most used—and that clearly have fewer ethical issues. Wherever you fall on this balance, there are fewer ethical questions with the transfer of mitochondria at the egg stage compared to the embryonic stage.
