Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - After a long and divisive national debate, Australia's Senate has passed legislation allowing researchers to harvest human embryos for their stem cells - and destroy them in the process.

Pro-life Senators expressed sorrow at the outcome, which will give scientists access to some 70,000 frozen embryos, created during in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment but unwanted by their parents.

Proponents of embryonic stem cell research say the cells - the building blocks of human skin, muscle, blood and tissue - could one day provide treatments for a range of diseases.

But for many pro-lifers the destruction of the early-stage human life is intolerable whatever the potential future benefit, as well as unnecessary, because "adult" cells from alternative sources are available.

"I've never been so disappointed as I am today," said Senator Ron Boswell, a 20-year veteran of the Senate and member of the National Party, the junior coalition partner in Prime Minister John Howard's ruling coalition.

An independent colleague who had also strongly opposed the bill, Brian Harradine, said the result had prompted him to consider seriously whether he ought to resign.

The Senate voted 45-26 in favor of the Research Involving Embryos Bill, with members permitted to a rare conscience vote on the issue.

In both the Senate and lower House of Representatives, the subject divided major parties and resulted in unlikely alliances across traditional liberal-conservative lines. Even the cabinet was split.

Another Senate pro-lifer, Guy Barnett, fought hard for the bill's defeat despite the fact his father died of motor neurone disease (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), and he is himself an insulin-dependent diabetic.

The two illnesses are among those scientists say are the most promising targets for future embryonic stem cell-based treatments.

With his health history, Barnett said, "I had to think about these issues very hard ... but the ends don't justify the means and I cannot support the legislation."

Throughout this year, senior Australian churchmen have come out in opposition to embryonic research.

Reacting to the vote, Roman Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson said parliament had "created for the first time in Australian political and legal history a class of human life which is statutorily expendable."

"Human life now becomes a commercial commodity," he said. "Under these laws, human life is for sale."

Wilson pointed out that out of 1,851 submissions received by a Senate committee, only 48 had supported the bill.

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, called the decision "dangerous and unethical."

Long and acrimonious debate

Along with the issue of terrorism, the controversial research has been a dominant subject in Australian politics since last April, when Howard agreed with premiers of the country's six states and two territories that there should be uniform federal legislation covering the work.

Howard had himself been the subject of vigorous lobbying by advocates and opponents, eventually coming out in cautious support of the research.

During the subsequent debate in the House of Representatives, lawmakers heard the views of leading scientists on both sides - including some prominent figures flown in from the U.S. to lend weight to their locally-based colleagues' arguments.

The campaign in favor of the research was spearheaded by an Australian pioneer in reproductive technologies, Prof. Alan Trounson

He and other advocates warned that Australia would lose scientists to institutions abroad, and forfeit its position in the forefront of the bio-technology field.

Trounson ran into trouble, however, when he screened a video for lawmakers that showed a crippled rat being able to walk again, supposedly after treatment with embryonic stem cells.

After opponents cried foul, the scientist later conceded that the rat had actually been treated with germ cells from an aborted fetus, not embryonic cells - treatment that would not have been allowed under the bill anyway.

Meanwhile those lobbying against the bill argued that the real aim of researchers was not to find cures, but to get their hands on embryos on which they could test drugs, study toxins' effects and carry out genetic research.

The bill's opponents also pointed out that, to date, only "adult" stem cells derived from sources like bone marrow and placentas - and therefore ethically uncontroversial - have succeeded in therapeutic studies.

They accused advocates like Trounson of giving patients false hope, saying it was drug and biotech companies that would be the true beneficiaries of the work, rather than those suffering from diseases like Parkinson's.

The bill eventually was passed in the House last September, at the end of a 35-hour debate, by 99 votes to 33.

It then moved to the Senate, where Boswell succeeded in holding it up by having it referred to a committee for a two-month inquiry.

Finally this week, dozens of amendments were debated in marathon sittings, including one calling for drugs and cosmetics tested on embryonic stem cells to be labeled as such - which failed.

The Senate then cut short debate and called a vote Thursday.

Howard welcomed the outcome, saying he had no doubt "we've done the right thing."

The bill now returns to the House of Representatives for consideration of minor amendments passed by the Senate, none of which are expected to prevent final passage.

The legislation is expected to take effect next year.