It's a subject that divides the political landscape, a medical debate that flows through to the whole community. Stem cell research is back on the agenda in Parliament and even before the legislation has been prepared the debate has begun. We talk to leading experts representing both sides of this ethical question and try and get to the bottom of the issues involved.

KRISTINE LUMB: Embryonic Stem Cells — our genetic programs lusted over by scientists and fretted over by pro life groups. The government has a ban prohibiting cloning of embryonic cells, but this week the Prime Minister announced he would allow a conscience vote in the parliament over whether or not that ban should be lifted. It is legal in Australia for licensed scientists to use excess IVF embryos for research purposes. The work being carried out around the country with these donated embryos has significant potential. At Monash University in Melbourne one project involves using embryonic stem cells to make blood cell products.

ED STANLEY, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, MONASH UNIVERSITY: There would be obvious advantages if red blood cells could be produced, en masse, under manufacturing conditions.

KRISTINE LUMB: The embryos apparent unique qualities are what are of importance in this research.

ED STANLEY: Embryonic stem cells can be cultured indefinitely in a laboratory and what this means is we're able to generate very large numbers of cells.

KRISTINE LUMB: Scientists are now requesting to take these unique qualities a step further — to clone the embryonic stem cell for therapeutic purposes.

ELIZABETH FINKEL, BIOCHEMIST, SCIENCE WRITER, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR COSMOS MAGAZINE: We're not talking about copying people, we're talking about copying their cells. if you for instance had type one diabetes what we would hope to be able to do is take one of your skin cells, and if we imaged that everyone of your cells is running a program, what is doing the programming, is like a little hard disk inside the cell called the nucleus. We can reboot that little hard disk back to it's original operating program where it could run all programs, so we would take that skin nucleus, and we would inject it into one of your own eggs whose own nucleus had been removed and now that the contents of your egg would reboot your skin nucleus and it would start developing as if it were a little embryo clone of you, a very primitive little embryo clone of you. It would then be used to derive embryonic stem cells and those stem cells would be coaxed to become pancreatic cells, insulin producing pancreatic cells and you would be able to have a graft of your own cells, no anti rejection drugs required.

KRISTINE LUMB: However fascinating this science may seem, the concept of cloning embryos is a major stumbling block for many critics.

PROFESSOR PETER SILBURN, NEUROLOGIST: Therapeutic cloning really is reproductive cloning, some people are concerned with the slippery slope argument that it's going to get out of control.

SENATOR RON BOSWELL, NATIONAL PARTY SENATOR: We're talking about cloning, we're talking about cloning, not about stem cells, we're talking about cloning and mixing human tissue and animal eggs and that, I believe, people don't want to go down there. And they certainly don't want to go down there if there is an alternative. And the alternative is adult stem cells.

DR MEGAN MUNSIE, STEM CELL SCIENCES: The technique of SCNT does creates an embryo, SCNT involves the replacement of an eggs nuclear material if you like with that of a donated cell. So you're really copying a patient's cell and you must have consent of that patient to do that procedure as well as the egg donor, so if you're like we're really copying a patient's cell and creating stem cells from that. We are not creating a new individual.

PROFESSOR PETER SILBURN: Adult stem cells are really starting to take off. If you want patient specific stem cells to be able to treat people or to be able to really study diseases, then your own cells are going to be the best. We don't have to alter them by putting them into someone else's eggs and we don't have to alter them by certainly putting them into another species eggs, I mean seriously.

DR MEGAN MUNSIE: I think you have to acknowledge it's research. The benefits are speculative, but there is good justification for pursuing this avenue. Adult stem cells could be valuable, so could embryonic. What we need to do is to be able to do the research to really find out which type of stem cell will be the most effective in a particular situation.

SENATOR RON BOSWELL: I don't see any need for the debate at all. I think we can do most things, other than IVF, with adult stem cells. Adult stem cells is where the breakthroughs in science are happening — you know these embryonic stem cells they want to use them for testing disease and medicines, well we're already doing that with adult stem cells and therefore I just don't see the reason that we've got to got down this path.

ELIZABETH FINKEL: I think for most logical people that's a furphy, I mean research is about the unknown, so what's the point of getting up and saying, I know which research is best or I know which research is best. This is, that's another pointless debate to be having.

KRISTINE LUMB: And while the scientific debate rages over whether or not we should be cloning embryonic stems cells, there is another more profound concern — whether ethically an embryo should be involved in such procedures at all.

SENATOR RON BOSWELL: Everyone has a moral compass, I am pro life, but I don't need to fall back on that, we've now opened the debate on cloning — cloning hybrid rabbit eggs and human tissue. Now doesn't that show that we're on a slippery slope? What will be next? Where do we go next? The slope is already there, we're already on it.

ELIZABETH FINKEL: The point is it's a matter of belief, if you believe that these embryos are persons, that is a belief that needs to be respected. On the other hand if you do not believe that these are persons, and you do believe in medical research that will help persons who are diseased or medical research just to increase the groundswell of knowledge, then you know your beliefs are also moral.

Read Elizabeth Finkel's opinion piece on the current stem cell debate in Australia. Or read a recent news article that may open the door to more stem cell research.