Leader of the Opposition

Thank you, Madame / Mr. Speaker. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

The motion before the house today is:

THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT STEM CELL RESEARCH SHOULD
BE EXPANDED.

We, the opposition, strongly feel that this motion be rejected.

Before moving on to our points, here is the context of my speech.

First, I will rebut on what has the Honorable Prime Minister have said,
including the definition.

Then, I will explain to the floor about our stand, which is we the opposition
believe that stem cell research should not be expanded because we do not want
to end up playing God.

I, as the leader of the Opposition will focus on one of our two points, which is
ETHICS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH;
while my Deputy Leader of Opposition will emphasize on our second point,
which is the RIGHTS OF THE EMBRYO.

Now, lets have a look at the points introduced by the Honorable Prime
Minister.

1. First, the definition. We, the Opposition, accept / reject fully the definition
explained by the Prime Minister. However, we do want to highlight the flaws in
the definition, hence we would like to state the following:

Stem Cell Research is the act of studying and developing stem cell of a
multicellular organism that has the capability to form more cells of the same
type. Hence, stem cell research does not apply to just humans, but to animals
and plants as well.

The Prime Minister explained expanded in the context of:

But our view on the expansion is to how far stem cell research should be
conducted within the limitations of ethics in scientific research. Again, we do
not want to end up playing God in stem cell research.

2.

3.

I mentioned earlier that about our stand in this debate is that we the Opposition,
would like to focus on our stand that stem cell research should not be expanded
because we do not want to end up playing God.

Ladies and gentlemen, we do recognize the benefits and harms in stem cell
research. Stem cell research does benefit mankind. The government may
increase their spending on the stem cell research, in fact, we highly encourage
that they do. But ladies and gentlemen, for the sake of this debate, we need to
debate on where do we draw the line in stem cell research where we do not end
up playing God.

Let me give you an analogy, in the novel Frankenstien, the Doctor Frankenstein
created a monster that end up being disliked by the town folks and view it as a
threat. The monster was friendly, but the monster had the potential to harm
people. Thus, are we going to allow stem cell research to create more monsters?
We, the opposition, feel that this motion should fall for these fundamental
reasons:

1. First, the ethics in scientific research that was established to ensure

there is no abuse in the work.
2. Second, since stem cell research uses embryonic cells, need to
safeguard these cells their right to exist.

Now ladies and gentlemen, allow me to expand on our first point, that is the
ethics in scientific research.

Before I proceed, may I have the POI from the Government please.

So ladies and gentlemen, I have already told you the rebuttals of the Prime
Minister and explained to you the first point. For these reasons, we the
Opposition, believe that stem cell research should not be expanded because we
do not want to end up playing God. We will not create any Frankensteins
monster. Thank you.