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Dame Jill Knight (Birmingham, Egbaston) : In case the impression begins to take hold in this debate that if one has had the misfortune to have a blighted child and to have lost it, one must be in favour of the Bill, I will mention at the outset that I had two such children and lost two such children, but that I remain strongly opposed to experimentation on human beings at any stage in their development. That is certainly not because I have no feelings or understanding for the couple desperate to have a child. I have every sympathy for couples who find themselves in that position.
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I would argue, however, that experimentation is certainly not the only way to find out about infertility. It is still most questionable whether experimentation on human embyros can tell us anything at all about infertility. How can an embyro that is totally unrelated to a man and a women tell us anything at all about why that man and that woman cannot conceive? I find that an odd proposition. I suppose that someone will say, "Ah, but it could be the couple's embyro." I do not think that it can, because if they have produced an embyro, they are not infertile. The argument does not stand up.I warmly commend the idea of all possible help being given to couples who desperately want a child, but if IVF is not very successful and can lead to ovarian cysts, answers should be sought where they can be found and that is certainly not by experimentation on unborn babies at the first stage of development. Surely it is true, and all of us must recognise, that the only way in which people can explain experimentation away or accept it is by saying, "We are talking about the first stages of development."
The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) mentioned the curate's egg. There is also such a thing as the housemaid's baby, which was "only a small one". The argument that is being used in this case is similar. People say, "It is ony a small embryo, in the first stage of development, so let us not worry about it." Nevertheless, it is a serious proposition that we should use a human being for experimentation at any stage in his or her development. I hope that the House will accept that. Then does not the House at least have the duty to be sure that embryo experimentation is necessary? If it is a serious matter, let us a least have proof that it is necessary. A great deal of information has been sent to hon. Members from doctors on both sides of the argument. If 99 per cent. of the doctors had said : "We must do this : it is the only way," the House might have been in a different position, but that has not happened. The medical profession seems to me to be divided more or less equally. One erudite professor wrote to me :
"The claims that experimentation on human embryos will contribute importantly to a knowledge of human reproduction, the prevention of infertility and congenital handicap are false."
Certainly there are things that we need to know about preventable infertility. There is such a thing as a blocked tube, for instance. A woman may suffer from pelvic inflammatory disease, and there are many other complaints that may be to blame, but none of their causes can be discovered by experimentation on the embryo. So many of the arguments of would-be experimenters collapse when we put them under the microscope. They say that an embryo is not a human being at that stage in its development. If it is not a human being, how can it give answers to problems facing the human race? Either it is a human being or it is not. They say that embryo experimentation is the only way forward, but genetic research has been going on for years without using embryos and it will continue whether we give or withhold permission to use them.
The would-be experimenters argue that nature wastes so many embryos ; it is always flinging them around like bits of confetti, so what does it matter? But nature wastes a whole lot : it wastes children, teenagers and more mature people. Thousands and thousands of people all over the world die prematurely for one reason or another. If it is argued that because nature wastes, we are entitled to use
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what it wastes for experimentation, why should we stop at embryos? If we are dealing with what nature wastes, there is a lot more going than an embryo or two here or there. If one believes that because nature, fate or God wastes human beings by bringing them an early death, we can put them to use for experimentation, we are on a very slippery slope indeed.If Parliament gives its blessing to experiments up to 14 days, the scientists will not stop there. Already many authorities, from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists through to geneticists such as Professor Robert Edwards, Professor Williamson, and the Council for Science and Society, have said that they would not be satisfied with 14 days. Once the principle is established, embryos will continue to be used, because it is perfectly obvious that the older an unborn child is, the more useful it will be to the scientists.
If the principle is breached, there is no escaping the consequences. Once one accepts that a human being, at whatever stage in its development, can be used for scientific experiment, the rubicon has been crossed and there is no going back. It will be 20 days, then 50 days, and then six months. Then we shall include wasted born babies who are mentally or physically handicapped, who will be considered no use and a drag on society. Did not someone once call them unproductive mouths? Once we say that it is perfectly feasible to allow human beings to finish up on a slab, being experimented on by scientists, there is no end to it.
How will the present proposed limit of 14 days be enforced? Will an inspector go into a laboratory and say, "Stop. Wait a minute. You have had 13 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes. You will never finish that in one minute, so you must not do it." How do we seriously suggest that such a rule will be policed? How will we ensure that nowhere in any laboratory does experimentation take place beyond 14 days? Many medical men are against what is proposed. Many handicapped people--never mind the parents of handicapped children--are against it. The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) advocated how sad it is to be handicapped and that it is much better that such people are not born. I cannot support that.
Mr. Wigley : Will the hon. Lady give way?
Dame Jill Knight : I have only about a minute left.
Dame Jill Knight : Well, the hon. Gentleman had better be quick.
Mr. Wigley : I did not say what the hon. Lady said I said. She should know that I love my boys with their handicap and all. No one can take that away from me. She should be ashamed of herself for suggesting that.
Dame Jill Knight : Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of himself for suggesting that I said that. I did not. I said that his words amounted to him saying how much better it would be to find a handicapped foetus at an early stage and get rid of it. That is exactly what he said. That does not mean to say that he does not love his children. It means that he thinks that it is much better to get rid of a handicapped foetus. I cannot agree with that.
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Even Church leaders have spoken out against that, although the Church is so divided these days that half the churchmen believe one thing and half the other. Perhaps we should not take too much notice of what the Church says. In the end, it comes down to an ethical and moral belief that human life is sacred, that none of us has the right to destroy a human being and that permitting experiments on embryos that are judged unwanted is the severest threat to human life and values since the passage of the Abortion Act 1967.8 pm
Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down) : I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this debate. There have been many fine and eloquent contributions today, based on science and morality, and I thought that perhaps I should keep away from those subjects because I am not as competent as others to deal with them.
My attitude to the Bill is probably simplistic, as it is based on human dignity. That is a simple phrase, but it is difficult to define. Where the Bill enhances the prospects for human dignity, I support it. However, where it denigrates human dignity, I withdraw my support from it.
The Bill has two elements--fertilisation and experiments on embryos. I put those elements to the test of human dignity, and I found that one element complemented it and the other was diametrically opposed to it. When we talk about human dignity, we are talking about human life and all its attributes. I do not care whether that human life is 80 years old, eight years old, or eight days old. It is still human life with the dignity that I want to attribute to all human life. I support with great compassion the in vitro fertilisation of any childless couple because that makes a contribution to human dignity--the dignity of the parents and no doubt of the child which will be loved all the more for its rarity and specialness. However, when considering the part of the Bill dealing with embryology and experimentation, it does not matter whether that life is 80 years, eight years or eight days old. The same human dignity and the same precious concept applies that I was taught to apply to my fellow man and to my neighbour, whatever age he may be. According to that principle, I am totally opposed to experimentation.
Although I am opposed to that experimentation, I have the greatest sympathy for many of the arguments in its favour, which the exponents hope in some way will expedite the day when mental and physical disability will be wiped out. We all look forward to that day and we all support that concept. However, we are concerned about the way in which we achieve that end. That is the only point on which we will differ.
In all the scientific arguments that have been made this afternoon for experimentation and the analysis of the human embryo, no one has said that research should not take place. We are saying that research into the human embryo is not the only way forward, and that it is one of the most dangerous ways forward in terms of human dignity. Many benefits can be obtained from other methods of research, as is clear from much of the propaganda that has been sent to hon. Members from both sides of the argument. In those circumstances, we must tread warily. Having listened to the arguments today, I cast my mind back to the debates on abortion. I appreciate that we have
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been exhorted not to confuse the two issues, but how can I not do so? On the one hand, I am told that we must stop experiments at 14 days, because there is something sancrosanct about that embryo. However, we can kill that embryo months later. There is no logic, morality or science in that argument. There is certainly no human dignity there either.On that basis, I ask hon. Members to consider the pro-life argument--well, pro-life may not be the right phrase ; perhaps pro-human dignity would be better. We must learn from history, whether we like it or not. On every occasion in history when human dignity was denied, catastrophe followed for the society concerned. This afternoon, people have been accused of being emotive in their approach to the subject. An emotive phrase continues to occure to me. There is a daily massacre of the innocents in this country. If I were to say the holy innocents, I would be accused of being religious so I left out the adjective. However, I believe that there is a total contradiction between killing a babe in the mother's womb at 22 weeks and doing all in one's power to preserve it in an incubator at the same age. That is the contradiction in the scientific approach. We all know that once the floodgates are opened--I do not mean that in an emotive way, because there will not be a sudden gushing outwards--there will be a steady trickle from 14 days to 15, to 16 and to 20. There will be no way of controlling it, and in that sense I oppose completely the idea of the so-called committee of control. I support those hon. Members who have said that the committee of control must be directly and immediately accountable to the representatives of the people of this country in this House and not by way of a self-regulating quango that can distance itself and its responsibility from the Minister, who must presumably answer to the House.
I am not speaking today for the sake of the record. I am representing my constituents, in the hope of persuading and converting, and in the hope of having a logical argument so that people will accept that the Bill is not the way forward to prevent mental or physical disability or to prevent infertility. All the arguments this afternoon have been negative. They have sought to increase the efficiency of abortion and to terminate unwanted and disabled embryos. They were all negative, not positive. I hope that I have represented as fairly as I can the people who elected me to this place. I certainly represent the broad viewpont of my party. 8.9 pm
Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes (Wimbledon) : About 14 months have passed since I spoke in a similar debate on this subject. In the meantime, work has obviously continued in in vitro fertilisation and embryology. I get the impression from today's debate that, whatever our different viewpoints and whatever the charm of having less legislation in this place, we want to make a non-partisan decision. As a physician and a barrister, I have tried to assess the implications of an issue that is daunting in all respects. We all know the strength of feeling in the country, and it is all the more so in a constituency such as mine in Wimbledon, where the Christian tradition is very much alive and the attendance at churches of all denominations is unusually
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and agreeably high. I have thus consulted widely on an ecumenical basis, and a useful exchange of views has resulted.I am well aware that, when one talks to people who are much better qualified than oneself on these profound theological and ethical issues, one feels the humbler for that. Having never worked directly in embryology, I have also consulted medical colleagues and have visited several units in which such work has been carried out under the guidelines set by the voluntary licensing authority, now the interim licensing authority. I pay tribute to a uniform standard of excellence and responsibility that reflects the very best of medical tradition in this country. As far as I know--it is confirmed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State--following the Warnock report there have been no breaches of the rules, which have been followed voluntarily.
That leads to the question whether we need the legislation. A senior Roman Catholic in my constituency, who certainly would not agree with many of my views, said :
"I am not necessarily against research as such, but the public needs reassurance."
I cannot improve on those wise words. The need for reassurance, both generally and to prevent such practices that have been mentioned today, such as cloning, genetic manipulation or the inappropriate use of spare embryos, becomes all the more acute as science continues to push the frontiers of knowledge.
To me, such advances are progress, but they have obviously caused unease historically, particularly when work has been carried out in connection with human life. Indeed, those who are most uneasy--and I do not belittle their feelings--tend to use the word "experimentation" rather than the neutral word "research", which is less emotive. The law must recognise changed circumstances and get the right balance. What are the two principal issues that we are debating? The first is assistance to sub-fertile couples to have children. Surely few would object to medical science offering help to the 10 per cent. or so couples falling within that category. Although the success rate has improved markedly, there is still an enormous way to go, and such advances will be halted if the House so decides. I accept that current procedures could continue even if research could not, but why reduce the hopes of such couples for their future happiness? It was put to me by a priest in my constituency that couples do not necessarily have the right to have children. I have a certain sympathy with that viewpoint. The assumption that we have rights in all sorts of matters has become subject to justifiable criticism. Certainly, the 25 per cent. of parents in 1988-- the figures were published last week--who had children outside marriage, compared with the 10 per cent. 10 years earlier, had not exercised their responsibilities. However, the vast majority of sub-fertile couples could not, by a process of self-selection monitored by the medical profession, be better motivated and more worthy of any help that medical science can offer.
The second issue is the early detection of profound mental and physical handicaps in children. I use the word "detection" rather than "prevention". First, I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) that there is no cure as yet--and I emphasis the word "yet." Secondly, I would not presume to judge the happiness that is given and received by parents
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of handicapped children. We are all aware of the amazing achievements of many handicapped children against all the odds. I am not an advocate of eugenics per se. Parents should be consulted if they so wish, and thereafter it is their choice whether to seek further information and to decide whether a pregnancy should continue.I cannot help wondering how many parents would decide to proceed if they knew that their child would be born handicapped. Some diagnoses can now be made as early as within 48 hours of fertilisation, and assessment can continue while the fertilised ovum is frozen. Placental biopsies and amniocenteses which are more traumatic and are carried out late in pregnnancy, will decrease in importance, and the incidence of late abortions, at whatever date the House subsequently decides, will decrease, to universal relief. Further safeguards in ILA guidelines have reduced the incidence of multiple births, which clearly threaten a safe birth by the mother and also the viability of under-sized babies.
I refer now to a question that I cannot answer but which all hon. Members will have to attempt to answer, as some have already tried : when does life start? On one side of the spectrum there are those who say that, in itself, the sperm or ovum has life. More commonly, it is asserted that the moment of fertilisation is the start of life. Even the definition of fertilisation is inexact. Is it the time of the penetration of the ovum by the sperm or, to be pedantic, is it to be the two-cell stage when the two genetic materials mix properly for the first time?
Other faiths, in my constituency and elsewhere, date life from the time of implantation. I was going to venture into a concept that I am not even certain is produced in the English dictionary--ensoulment. I shall desist from discussing that matter tonight, but I leave the House with the thought that identical twins presumably have different souls. We do not know when souls enter identical twins--it is a complex theory--but it can logically be argued that one cannot have a soul until the 14th day, which is the day on which the first neurological tissue is laid down. [Interruption.] I recognise that I shall not carry the House with me.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Has my hon. Friend identical twins? I have.
Dr. Goodson-Wickes : I suggest that they do not have identical souls.
The House should bear it in mind that no fertilised egg has yet been cultured in vitro beyond nine days. Whether or not the House likes it--I suspect that many people do not--there is also a long legal precedent for productions of conception receiving relative degrees of protection. That is a long-established principle of British law. I have sought to show that there are few if any absolutes in this contentious issue. If reassurance is in the air, Warnock provides it. We cannot turn the clock back, but we could stop it and, by stopping it, stop the legitimate aspirations of those couples who wish to develop their own happiness within the context of the family. With further research into sub-fertility--male or female--and genetic disorders, many more people will benefit from advances made as costs decrease and accessibility, which at the moment is very limited, increases. I recognise that there
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will be wide differences in hon. Members' standpoints, but I trust that we will respect each others views and will vote to replace semantics and scruples with science and sense.8.18 pm
Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) : I do not wish to detain the House for too long. I welcome the Bill and the debate, which is about a fundamental issue. For many years we have debated the science of embryology and how it can or cannot help people. For most of us, science in this century, and even in this decade, has moved ahead by leaps and bounds. It cannot be right that science should move on in industry and not in other aspects of our lives. As we know that science can both create and destroy, we must ensure at all times that it is regulated and controlled.
The Bill is about very fundamental issues : at stake is the right to make decisions about parenthood. I believe that it is only through controlled pre-embryo research that choices will be extended to those who are infertile or who carry a gene disorder.
We must all know or have met a constituent or have a colleague, friend or family member whose life has been scarred because they are unable to have children. We may also know those who have been fortunate enough to have been the recipient of treatment that has resulted in a much-wanted child : treatment that would never have been available to them without pre-embryo research. Some hon. Members have questioned whether that has been of benefit to people. I find that incredible. Since the first birth as a result of in vitro fertilisation--Louise Brown in Oldham in 1978--thousands of children have been born to people in this and many other countries who would otherwise never have had the opportunity of parenthood.
But in vitro fertilisation is still successful in only 10 to 15 per cent. of treatments. For the sake of the estimated 275,000 sufferers of infertility who could benefit from IVF, it is vital that further research is conducted that will improve the present programmes. There are many known causes of infertility in men and women, and there are many that are at present unknown. Only 10 per cent. of infertile men can currently be helped either by surgery or hormone treatment, yet infertility is as common in men as in women. This is not just a women's issue, although women Members will have both opened and closed the debate for the Opposition.
One in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Although we cannot stop miscarriages occurring, controlled science has meant that miscarriages are better understood. However, without research little hope of a solution to these problems can be offered. Among the many organisations that have sent us their views on this Bill I, like all hon. Members, have received correspondence from the National Association for the Childless. The testimony of such people is one of the most powerful reasons to support licensed experimentation on pre-embryos.
However, it is not only the infertile who will benefit from the continuation of the research. Although we cannot say that we have had great success in sorting out the problems of hereditary genetic disorders in families in the past five years, I am sure that in time it will be possible to screeen pre-embryos from those who are at risk of passing on a genetic disease. It will enable those people to establish pregnancies that are not affected by the disease, rather than have to make the agonising decision of whether to have an abortion after weeks of pregnancy.
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The case for this research to continue was made to me most effectively by a couple in my constituency whom I have contacted again and who have allowed me to share with the House their experience. They wrote :"We are the parents of two sufferers of Retinitis Pigmentosa, one of over 4,000 disorders that are genetically transmitted. RP is a disease of the retina of the eye. It can, in the worst cases lead to total loss of sight in youth and is the second greatest cause of blindness in the country. 25,000 families are affected. There is no treatment, no cure and no way of preventing its transmission from one generation to another
Scientists have recently begun to identify some of the genes that carry RP. In a year or two it should be possible for parents who are known to be at risk of having an affected child to fertilise embryos in vitro, test for the genetic defect, and have inserted in to the mother's womb only a defect -free embryo. This procedure would provide, for couples who want to use it, a means of ensuring that they can have children in the certainty that they will not risk passing on a hereditary disease, a dread which haunts everybody who suffers from one."
That couple then comment specifically on a clause on which hon. Members will have to take a decision on the Floor of the House if the rest of the business goes through. They state :
"The version of the clause that would ban all research into pre-embryos would render impossible the kind of procedure described above. It would be a terrible blow to those of us who have come to hope that it might be feasible to end the transmission of the condition that so malignly affects us. Can it conceivably be right for the nation, as represented in Parliament, to deprive so many of its citizens of one of the main avenues of progress on a matter so fundamental"
I said at the beginning of my speech that the legislation involves fundamental issues. I am a proud father of three healthy children and, since the Bill was given its Second Reading in another place, I have become a grandfather. I deeply believe that it would be wrong to deny people the right to have children. We need controlled science to help in that.
8.25 pm
Mr. W. Benyon (Milton Keynes) : I, too, welcome the Bill. The last time such legislation was discussed in the House, I urged my hon. Friend's predecessor, my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State for Social Services, to speed up such legislation. The Government have been as good as their word.
One reason why I feel so strongly about the Bill is that the present position is untenable. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair -Wilson) was right to draw attention to that in his intervention in the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State. I also welcome the timetable arrangements which, I hope, we shall pass at the end of the debate. I wish that such arrangements were in force for many other pieces of legislation. Try as I might, I cannot find any logical alternative to conception being the start of life. I have a great pile of literature on my desk from organisations and people who are trying to prove the contrary. As a drowning man clings to a log of wood when he is in the water, I stick to that definition because I cannot find any other reasonable criteria with which to deal with this important Bill. If one departs from that idea, where does one end up? What is the difference in law, in logic, in morality or in science between 14 days, 20, 30 or 40 days? My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) clearly identified the fact
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that on the one hand it is said that the experimentation must stop at 14 days, whereas at 15 days--or after that--we are quite prepared to abort the foetus.I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) is no longer in his place, because I wish to take issue with the advice that he received from some clerics in the Salisbury diocese. Despite what was said, Christianity has never been in any doubt about the fact that human life starts with conception and ends with death. Some scientists and doctors try to chip away at each end, but it is Parliament's duty to hold the ring and to ensure that we arrive at the right answer.
I read the reports of the debates in the other place carefully. Some of their Lordships seemed to be saying that they were not in favour of experimentation, but that they felt that they could not take that view into law. In a democracy, that seems a counsel of despair. All social legislation has involved great controversy, but we have had to consider and decide those measures with our votes. This is no exception.
Crucial to our discussion on this part of the Bill is the question whether, by banning research, we are stopping or delaying progress with either IVF or the elimination of genetic diseases. I am sure that many hon. Members will make up their minds on that issue alone, and that it will be a decisive factor.
The debate is far too short to go deeply into the arguments that have been placed before us by various people in the medical and scientific professions. One thing is clear. Even in the relatively short time since Warnock, we have far greater knowledge than that Committee had. Things are moving fast, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Goodson- Wickes) said. The harsh light of publicity has shone on the matter since Warnock. As a result, we have been shown research methods and findings which were not available then. I am not against research. All that I am against is research that destroys the embryo, as the Father of the House said so eloquently earlier. The problem with IVF is not fertilisation but the implantation of the fertilised embryo. There is no need to use embryos for research into this. We also know that genetic abornamalities are evident in the sperm or in the ovum. Therefore, there is no need to use the live embryo for such research. It can be carried out without doing that. Therefore, we must think carefully about these points and consider the technical evidence that has been put before the House.
George Orwell talked about 1984. I submit to the House that if we follow the example of the other place, we shall be only six years late.
8.31 pm
Mr. David Alton (Liverpool, Mossley Hill) : To reinforce what the hon. Member for Milton Keynes (Mr. Benyon) has just said. If the people who pitted themselves against slavery in this Parliament 200 years ago had listened to the utilitarians of their day and accepted that it was merely a matter of private morality, the slavery laws would still be on the statute book. I do not accept that this is merely a matter of private morality. It is an issue on which everyone in the Chamber has a right to a view. It goes to the very heart of how we perceive humanity.
Lady Warnock has always emphasised the distinction between fact and opinion. I agree with her. In 1985 at
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Newcastle, she said that only a fool would now say that life does not begin at conception. Her committee, which drew up the Warnock report, said :"Once the process has begun, there is no particular part of the development process which is more important than another However, we agreed that this was an area in which some precise decision must be taken in order to allay public anxiety."
Lady Warnock and her committee hit on the aptly named primitive streak. As the hon. Member for Maidstone (Ms. Widdecombe) said earlier, she never once used the term pre-embryo. That was a later invention. Surely a debate which may make lawful destructive experiments on human embryos requires the clearest of language. The word "embryo" comes from the Greek and is defined as the rudimentary, initial or earliest stage of development. The word "foetus" means little one. Those code words from ancient language hide the truth that our generation seeks to deny.
Our opponents in the debate say that the embryo is just a collection of cells. That may be, but it is still a unique human being. One could say that every human being, of whatever age or size, is just a collection of cells. Just because an embryo is small, it does not mean that it is morally inferior. Others say that it is merely potential life. Not true. It is human life with the potential, in favourable circumstances, to develop fully to human maturity. In many ways, the 14-day argument concedes that. After all, as the right hon. Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) said, it must be 14 days after something. Fertilisation is the only event to which everyone of us here can point and say, "That is when I began and I have been me ever since."
The appearance of the primitive streak is a landmark, not a watershed. It is an incident in a life that has already begun. Fertilisation determines the colour of our eyes and the colour of our skin, our sex and our uniqueness--not 14 days. The conclusions that we reach about the tiny, vulnerable, powerless human embryo will later shape how we regard the status of every individual and how we perceive his or her human rights. It will determine our attitude towards disabled people, the senile, the incurably sick and the terminally ill.
This supreme human rights issue is of the highest moral significance. Those who justify destructive experiments use the classic utilitarian argument that means justify ends, that benefits outweigh costs and that it is my right to choose, even to take another human life, because it is all for the common good. We heard the word "enlightenment" earlier. Dr. Michael Hall, who was quoted in The Guardian in 1987, said on the subject of scientists' intentions in research and IVF :
"It would mean we could manipulate at will the genetic pool, produce super- races, modify ethnic traits, excise socially unacceptable habits--in fact produce people to order."
If they had the unfettered right, unhampered and unhindered by Parliament, some of our scientists would pursue nothing less than that. Their thinking is summed up by the Oxford philosopher, Jonathon Glover, who said :
"For a utilitarian killing is in no way intrinsically wrong, but is only wrong because of its implications for happiness and misery." Scientists say, "Allow us to experiment and there will be no more handicap and no more infertility." The supporters of experimentation have been constantly challenged, and I challenge the Secretary of State again today, to name a
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single human disease in which embryo research has led to significant cures or advances in treatment. Lord Walton of Detchant, the scientist--who favours experimentation--admitted in the debate in another place :"I agree that as yet there are none."
Cures are not achieved. What is achieved is detection. One hon. Member described it as culling the handicapped. Lord Rea also told the House of Lords :
"We should also consider society's need to reduce by every means possible the proportion of handicapped children."--[ Official Report, House of Lords, 8 February 1990, c. 958.]
The House should note the phraseology. He referred to the elimination not merely of handicap, but of handicapped children, by every means possible.
Care and kill can never be used as synonyms. Quality controls and perfection tests on life are repugnant. They are defeatist. There are alternatives. Professor Hymie Gordon, Professor Jerome Lejeune, Professor John Marshall and Professor Ron Taylor, whom I mentioned earlier in an intervention, are four of the leading academics in the field. Professor Gordon said :
"Everything we need to learn can be learnt by studying genetic diseases in non-human primates and other animals."
Much valuable work is also being done in treating genetic conditions. That does not involve embryos ; it involves research on blood or other tissues taken from adult patients. In the longer term there is also the prospect of gene therapy. I support strongly non-lifetaking research and unconditional help for disabled people and their families.
As the child enters the valley of decision, it is worth pondering for a moment where our failure to follow the maker's instructions have taken us. Within the past two weeks, there have been two graphic illustrations of our anti-life ethics. In my city of Liverpool, a court came to a verdict after a drunken driver mowed down an eight-month pregnant mum on a pedestrian crossing. The baby died, but the court was told that the unborn child did not count. The driver was given a three-month sentence and a £1 fine.
There was also the case of the King's college baby, stabbed to death through the wall of the womb with potassium chloride at 27 and a half weeks gestation. One of a pair of twins, the baby had a chromosomal defect that would have left it impotent. A letter in The Lancet suggested that such selective reduction should be called pregnancy enhancement as a more endearing description of what we authorise under British law.
We were told 23 years ago that abortion rights would not lead to abortion on demand. Today, one in five pregnancies ends in abortion--3 million since 1967. It is a cruel paradox that this Bill says that personhood begins at 14 days and after that it would be a crime to violate the embryo. However, it will remain perfectly legal to kill a foetus in an abortion for the next 26 weeks. It will also be legal deliberately to create so-called spare human embryos, merely for the purpose of experimentation. If we treated foxes, seals or beagles in that way, there would be a public outcry.
Like the abortion laws, there will be no end to what we are asked to sanction. Like the abortion laws, once the principle has been agreed, it will be difficult to turn back. The popular perception is that, once Parliament has legalised something, it must be right. Our legislation allows abortions later than anywhere else in the world. Last year, women from 100 countries--from Mongolia to South Africa--came to the United
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Kingdom for late abortions. Denmark, Ireland, parts of Australia, Norway, Portugal, and soon West Germany all forbid experiments in their countries, and the House must ask itself whether it really wants Britain to be the centre of that trade.Concern for the human embryo is part of a seamless garment. That garment is woven together by a common thread. Here is a concern for life, justice, care and worth. When one considers the degradation of life today, destruction of family life, collapse of communities and of good neighbourliness, contamination and plunder of creation, and indifference to the world's hungry and poor, one can see how that seamless garment has become a tatter of rags. That is what happens when society ceases to believe that each person is unique, sculpted in the image of his maker, and not to be treated as expendable raw material.
The Bill represents a crossroads every bit as important as that which we faced in 1967, and concerns an issue of fundamental human rights. I hope that the House agrees that to embark on the use of the tiniest human being as the subject of destructive experimentation is a dangerous departure from civilised ways. I say in conclusion to the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), who said "Knock and the door will be opened" :
"In as much as ye have done it to the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me."
8.41 pm
Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East) : I congratulate the Government on an excellent Bill, on a subject that is not easy to tackle. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health and the other Ministers concerned have done well. The Bill had a good passage through the other place. I congratulate their Lordships and the Archbishop of York on their debate on clause 11 in particular, and on sending the Bill to this House in a form that we would like to consider.
We should congratulate also this country's doctors and scientists on giving us a world lead through a combination of excellence in medical science and in moral science. Philosophers such as the Reverend Professor Dunstan, a former Queen's chaplain, deserves great credit for his work in sustaining the philosophy behind the work of Edwards and Steptoe.
I refer briefly to the subject of handicaps, in which I have a personal interest as the adoptive parent of a handicapped child. Research offers the chance of a breakthrough in helping parents who risk producing children with genetic disorders to avoid doing so. I ask any right hon. or hon. Member who is doubtful about how to vote, to vote in favour of the Bill, for the hope that such research offers prospective parents. Handicaps afflict too many people in our country, and we do not look after them properly.
I remind the House that there are 5,500 handicapped children in institutional care because their parents are unable to look after them. I know of families in my constituency who make desperate attempts to look after their children, but who find it difficult to do so. We should not seek to stop research that can offer families the chance of healthy children.
Handicapped children are often sent from pillar to post and lead a miserable life not only because of their handicap but on account of the breakdown in the family relationship that stems from it. Handicapped children surely deserve
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the love and care of a family even more than healthy children. I call upon right hon. and hon. Members who oppose research to do more to provide family homes for handicapped children.I opposed Enoch Powell's Bill, and have played my part in the five-year campaign against the thinking behind his Bill. I also helped to form the campaign group Progress, which has helped to counter propaganda against the Bill and has been well supported by medical charities. The work done by the Medical Research Council and the Association of Medical Research Charities also illustrates the broad base of scientific support for the Bill. Only a small minority of scientists are opposed to the research in question. I look forward to the debate on clause 11, and to the vote on it, and I hope that I may play a part in its Committee stage.
8.44 pm
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