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{
    "id": 542049,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/542049/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 59,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Prof.) Nyikal",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 434,
        "legal_name": "James Nyikal",
        "slug": "james-nyikal"
    },
    "content": "Basically, you have what takes place outside and what takes place inside. The Bill, as the title indicates is, to a large extent, talking of what happens outside. It is important that we look at the whole area. These things are going on in this country without the existence of a law. These technologies have far reaching consequences apart from just helping people to get babies when they cannot. Therefore, we should not allow them to go on without some form of law. I just want to raise the a few issues that we should look at. Being unable to get a child is clear and everybody understands it. However, when you have fertilised the ovum with the sperm and the embryo is outside, that is to a large extent a human being, but it is still very much amenable to a lot of experiments. At that point, it is possible to transfer nuclear material and change the genetic make-up of the person who will result from that process. So, if we have no law, people can play around with the process. It is even conceivable that once you have the embryo outside, you can even try to introduce animal nuclear into it –experiments that will be absolutely abhorrent. We will not allow that to take place. There is another large area we call “stem cell research”. Stem cell research is using the basic cell to produce any organ that we want, whether we want a lung or a heart, we can do that. The richest sources of stem cell research that are used are embryos that have been fertilized, but have not been used. When this thing is done, it is not normally one ovum and one sperm that are put into a petri dish. You actually use a large number of them and then you start selecting which one you will put back into the womb, so that there is viability. The question then is: What happens to the ones that are left? If we are not careful and we do not have a law, we can have a situation where we can be a country where people come and buy embryos to use for research. We need a law to address such issues. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}