John Howard overrode George Pell’s objections to allow research using surplus IVF embryos

John Howard’s decision to allow stem cell research using surplus IVF embryos might surprise people “who saw Howard as only a rightwing person”, the former senator and cabinet minister Amanda Vanstone has said.

Despite opposition from conservative and religious groups, and despite seeking advice from the then Catholic archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, the former Liberal prime minister lifted the national ban in 2002.

Speaking before the release of the 2002 cabinet records by the National Archives of Australia, Vanstone described a “notional example” of how the debate in cabinet might have gone.

The choice, which was incendiary to some, was between using leftover embryos for research, or allowing them to “succumb”.

The papers show the then minister for ageing, the conservative Kevin Andrews, recommended the ban continue as part of a push for nationally consistent legislation on human cloning, assisted reproductive technology and related matters.

Vanstone said that was “clever or sneaky language”.

“Cloning makes you think of humans climbing out of test tubes … walking around in the paddock like Dolly the sheep,” she said. “It was nothing like that at all.” Part of the proposal on stem cells related to therapeutic cloning of individual cells.

In her notional example (she has been critical of those who reveal what goes on in cabinet), Vanstone suggested someone might have asked Howard to clarify with Andrews what would happen to the “excess” embryos if they could not be used for research.

“I think that’s a fair question for someone to ask him,” she said. “You can imagine … the minister in favour of a ban might look a bit pallid, drop his gaze and say [something] softly, reverentially.

“And the prime minister, who is not good on hearing, faced with such soft words might have a couple of split seconds where he’s thinking of asking: ‘Well, what do you mean?’

“And that will be the time for someone to sit in and offer a very helpful insight into what ‘succumb’ means.

“You might say something like, ‘he means they’re taken out of the freezer, left to expire and disposed of as rubbish, special purpose rubbish. So what you’re looking at, prime minister, it is research or rubbish.’”

Vanstone said she could “imagine that that sort of conversation might have taken place”.

Howard spoke to other religious leaders, as well as Pell, and went ahead to lift the ban on stem cell research – although he retained the ban on therapeutic cloning.

Vanstone said the papers recommended a ban on research, and Howard’s refusal to follow that recommendation showed he had “a more moderate side”.

A conservative prime minister talked to Pell, she said, “and yet he still made this change”.

Howard said at the time: “The central ethical issue here is that I have been personally unable to find a huge moral distinction between allowing the human embryo to succumb as a result of its exposure to room temperature, and ending it through research.”

Howard told 2GB’s Alan Jones there were restrictions.

“The main restriction is that it should at this time be limited to embryos already in existence and surplus to IVF requirements and which will, if nothing else is done, be destroyed by exposure to room temperature,” he said.

“That will not, on our advice, in any way unreasonably restrict research. There are something in the order of 60,000 to 70,000 surplus embryos available and the scientific advice we have is that for practical purposes this will place no restriction on research.

“It does provide the additional safeguard in a difficult area that the argument about whether or not you can effectively legislate to prevent the creation of embryos for research purposes as distinct from reproductive purposes does not arise if you limit it to those that are already in existence.”