House of Commons Hansard Debates for 23 Apr 1990

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That must be reiterated in light of the debate, because much of it has focused on that crucial moment when life as we recognise it begins. It is when, perhaps, the soul enters the human body, to put it in the most easily understandable way.

If we accept that it is a continual, gradual process, we must accept that there is some arbitrary element in the decision on when research should be allowed and what the cut-off point should be. In the Glover report, the endorsement of the 14 days is made absolutely clear. It is a sensible cut- off point before any organs develop and before the primitive streak begins to develop. It is interesting that that has just been accepted in Spain and approved by King Juan Carlos. Spain is a Catholic country and it has not been unable to resolve the religious dilemma in tackling this difficult problem. I should like to refute several points made by the right hon. Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine), the Father of the House. Those who are involved in the work would accept that IVF treatment is not a panacea for all evils. They do not claim that it is the be-all and end-all in solving infertility and genetic disease and making many other contributions to the medical world. They accept that it is a slowly developing and growing discipline that will make some valuable contributions. In 1990, it is unfair to draw attention to the words of Professor Winston in 1982 without reminding the House of the dramatic developments in the intervening eight years. Things that were unheard of and would not have been accepted as available in the foreseeable future in 1982 were dismissed. We have seen dramatic changes since then. Only last week we heard for the first time that some women were pregnant, having been able to have their embryos sexed to make sure that they were not carrying a child with an inherent genetic disease that affects only one sex.

Again we have heard the questions, "Is that a cure? Is that prevention?" Of course it is prevention. To date, there has been no method by which an embryo can be unloaded of a genetic disease and continue to fruition. Do we say that research to date is not valid and does not have a place in our society? Some women have seen their brothers, nephews and uncles die of dreadful diseases that affect only the males in their families. They may have a child already afflicted by the same disease, or they may have had a late abortion, having discovered at 19 or 20 weeks that they were carrying a boy chid. Should we condemn those women to childlessness?

Are we not doing them a great disservice by saying, "You are not allowed to make the choice to have a girl child and not to risk carrying this dreadful disease further"?

There have been many references to research in Australia, but, when looking at the merits of research and what is happening elsewhere in the world, we must constantly remind ourselves that it would not be happening at all were it not for the research that has taken place here. Without research we would not have reached the present stage. Research has a variety of functions. The three main functions are treatment of infertility, an attempt to tackle genetic diseases, and progress in the development of contraception. Of course no one is happy with the current rate of success. A 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. success rate in the treatment of infertile couples is not nearly high enough. In our constant quest for a cure for cancer, have we said that, because we have made progress

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slowly and because in certain years we seemed to reach a plateau, we should give up? I am afraid research is not like that.

7.45 pm

We may go forward slowly and painstakingly and seem to get nowhere fast for many years and then there may be a breakthrough. No one can guarantee when a breakthrough will occur, but without continuing research we are committed to the status quo. For many of those who suffer the problems that have been described the status quo is just not good enough.

Women such as myself who have had children fairly easily find it difficult to comprehend the misery of childlessness. However, if one talks to someone who has been trying to have a child for 10 years or more and who watches her sisters and even her nieces and friends producing children and who feels inadequate and unfulfilled and less than a woman, one begins to understand the pain and misery. We must continue to recognise and tackle the problem.

Hon. Members recognise that breakthroughs in genetic disease are in their early stages. There may be far more. I would be the first to admit that many parents who do not know that they are carriers of a genetic disease will not have received treatment. However, others know that they are carrying a disease, but they are often only a small percentage of the population for whom that benefit may be appropriate. Are we to deny people possible help with their dreadful dilemma?

What choice do they have at present? They have the choice not to have children, but childlessness is miserable. They can choose a late abortion. Again, that is a miserable experience. Of course, they can give birth to an affected child. Nobody is saying that they must have treatment. There is no compulsion to participate in the scheme and avail oneself of the new techniques. For those whose religious beliefs strongly dictate that they must have the child who is to be born to them no matter what, their right will be absolutely protected. For many people, a pre-implantation diagnosis must be far better.

We should not turn our backs on research and say to childless couples, "We cannot help you further." We need research not only for IVF, but to understand the causes of miscarriage, which means that many women will not have to go as far as IVF. A better understanding of miscarriage will be the tool to help in their dilemma. Are we to say to those who risk genetic disease, late abortion, and miscarriage time after time, "Sorry, there is something that could be done to help you but, for reasons of ethics and of conscience, we have said that it cannot go further"? They will say, "We have our conscience and our ethics, and we also have our misery to bear, and we would like progress." We are debating not whether research is to be allowed to take place, but whether it should be properly controlled to benefit humankind and to bring joy rather than to add to human misery.

I shall make one personal point, as I am one of the few people in the Chamber who has had an amniocentesis test when I had a child at the age of 39. In an earlier pregnancy, I had rubella at an early stage and waited from week 13 to week 20 for the medical profession to agree that that was what I had had at 13 weeks. I knew that I was not prone to hysterical rashes. I also knew that I had been in contact with a child who had rubella, so I knew that that was what I had. However, for perfectly laudable reasons, it took a

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further seven weeks for the results of the blood test to be made available to my consultant, who then agreed that I had had rubella at 13 weeks' pregnancy. I had spent seven weeks knowing that the child was growing, becoming more obviously pregnant and feeling it move. I was then given 24 hours to decide whether I wanted a termination. I shall never forget those 24 hours in my life.

I went ahead with the pregnancy and my son, who is now nearly 17, although he is partially hearing, has been a great joy to us. I see some merit in the argument that that made it all right, but I must stress to those who have never had the experience that that seven-week period was a miserable time and that the decision whether to go ahead with the pregnancy, knowing that I might have had a severely disabled child or whether to abort a child who was quite well and would have a reasonable hope of happiness and fulfilment, was a dreadful one, and I would not wish it on anyone. It would be a great step forward for humanity for anyone to be able to make that decision in advance of having a child growing in their womb, and we should not turn our back on that option.

Although I do not have strong religious convictions, I have not turned my back on the religious argument which I know is strongly felt by many people. At one of the briefing meetings that I attended I heard about an interesting book by a Roman Catholic doctor who had reached the conclusion that embryo research was in the best interests of her patients. Her name is Dr. Joyce Poole and her book is called "The Cross of Unknowing". She has worked for many years with people wishing to have abortions and people with infertility problems, knowing that embryo research was one route out of their dilemma. She worked as a Catholic doctor, knowing that her Church was preaching something quite different from what she was beginning to feel was the right way forward.

Dr. Poole draws attention to some interesting moral and religious dilemmas. She says that when a woman has a late miscarriage when a foetus is born dead, that foetus has no special rights. It is not baptised ; it is discarded along with normal hospital waste. We are trying to give rights to an embryo of up to 14 days which do not exist later in that process. She also says that we accept the test of brain death. When the cells in the brain stop functioning in a person who is severely ill or has been severely injured, that is accepted as death and the life-support machine can be switched off. We are giving a totally different set of rights to something that does not have a brain or any brain cells at that stage in its existence. I am not under-estimating its potential or denigrating an embryo of up to 14 days ; I am simply putting the matter in perspective.

Dr. Poole says that, without the embryo research that has taken place to date, there would not have been so many live births, but she recognises that it is necessary to use ovulatory drugs, as without them there would be a far poorer chance of success and there would have to be repeated operations for obtaining eggs, with problems of time, risk and cost. As a result of using such drugs, spare embryos are created. If one accepts that principle, and the fact that there will be spare embryos, there is a variety of options. One can force the women whose embryos they are to have them re-implanted with the result of multiple pregnancies or innumerable births, or one can freeze the embryos. One can allow them to perish naturally or one

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can use them for two or three days--up to 14 days--for invaluable research which will help women such as those who donate their spare eggs for such work.

It is interesting to note that most of the embryos used for experimentation are given freely. I have met women who have given their eggs. Even women who have failed to establish a pregnancy have said, "It has not worked for me, but I have some spare embryos and I hope that they will help somebody else." Dr. Joyce Poole comments : "There is an authority too residing in those of us who have a lifetime of listening in close and frank contact to the problems of ordinary people."

That is what made her reconsider.

I do not believe that there is any relationship between what we are discussing tonight and people who have already been born handicapped. There is no attempt to undervalue or to denigrate them. Once a person has been born with a handicap or problem, that person is entitled to the maximum that our society can do for them. That is not to say that their parents--as they would never have the decision--would not rather that they had not been born but, had they known how they would be born, another child not carrying that disease may have been born instead.

It has been argued that we would be on a slippery slope. I have said that I do not think that 14 days is absolutely cast in stone, but the House should commit itself to a 14-day limit as there must be a benchmark, strong regulations and proper controls. There is general agreement that 14 days is an acceptable period for achieving medical results and pre-empting the development of an embryo into a human being.

Research will continue here or abroad. We should allow it to continue here legally, safely and properly regulated. The research offers hope for current and future generations and it offers choice that people will not continue to have if we turn our backs on them. To deny that research would be short-sighted and irresponsible in the extreme.

Sir Trevor Skeet (Bedfordshire, North) : In an extremely interesting speech, the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mrs. Barnes) accepted the 14-day limit, but that is not a bulwark which will hold. I have looked carefully at British society in the past 20 to 30 years. I have noticed changes in policy on divorce and abortion and the elimination of 1 million children. I have also examined the recent case of the three Turks who unfortunately had their kidneys removed without their consent, and I am concerned about society's respect for the dignity of human life. I believe that, at conception, the DNA is in place. That is the code of life, and from that moment on it is due respect.

It would be incongruous for the legislature to give total protection to the human embryo after 14 days but permit abortion within 28 weeks of conception. It is ironic that society has been so sensitive about hanging murderers but so complacent about destroying unborn babies. Those developing the so-called contraceptive vaccine to limit population growth, calculate to use the embryo to test the efficacy of its destructive process. All these are telling points. It is all very well the Secretary of State alleging that he will keep to 14 days. We know that 14 days will be breached at the first opportunity, as soon as it can be established that there is more material gain to be secured thereafter. Fourteen days is not immutable. At the time of the Warnock report, scientists talked about 14 to 28 days.

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Lejeune observed that one cannot yield solutions to the problem of genetic disease because prior to 14 days no organs or tissues exist. 8 pm

Professor Williamson said that organogenisis occurs between 14 and 28 days. That is the time at which experiments will be prohibited by the Bill. In November 1989, the Royal Society was talking about up to 28 days. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists talked about 17 days in 1983. Professor Bob Edwards--now a great personality in history--talked about 30 days.

I am disturbed that the tendency to back-tread could be extremely dangerous. During the debate, many hon. Members have talked about research. They have given it two connotations. No one objects to general research for the relief of pain and suffering, whatever it may be. We simply argue that, where research would involve the destruction of a human embryo, the embryo must be safeguarded. Conservative Members--or at least a few of us--believe that the onus of proof is on those who want to establish the change and allow research on embryos.

The Progress report says on page 6 :

"No one would dispute the claim that 95 per cent. or more of research required can and should be done without the use of human embryos".

In 1989, the professor of genetics at the Mayo clinic in the United States, Professor Hymie Gordon, said :

"Everything we need to learn can be learnt by studying genetic diseases in non-human primates and animals no one has ever been able to tell me as a scientist what particular step in scientific knowledge is going to be achieved by an experiment on a human embryo that could not have been done in an animal embryo."

Hon. Members will appreciate that the use of animals is growing more expensive every year. The expense of the upkeep of monkeys is becoming prohibitive. In contrast, the human embryo is readily accessible and relatively inexpensive. Might that not be one of the reasons why people are going ahead with such experiments? We have been told that many major breakthroughs and genetic advances have been achieved without research on human embryos. We had two examples from the Secretary of State today--the discovery of the gene that causes cystic fibrosis and that which causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy. We have also been told today about the splendid work of Professor Robert Winston on a successful implant following sex identification. But no one said that the same results could have been achieved without experimenting on the human embryo, by sampling the polar body of the ovum before conception. The Secretary of State did not mention that. Sex can be determined either within three days, at a later stage when there can be an abortion or prior to fertilisation of the egg. If sex can be determined before fertilisation, is it not better for society to tread that path? It should learn to treat and cure, not to destroy life.

Ms. Harriet Harman (Peckham) : How would it be possible to know whether the fertilised embryo was safe and free from abnormality if there had not been research? Would it not be irresponsible to remove the polar body and then reimplant it without having done thorough research to make sure that an abnormal embryo was not being reimplanted in the woman on an experimental basis?

Sir Trevor Skeet : The hon. Lady will appreciate that, prior to conception, an egg came from the woman and semen came from the man. Because shortly there will be a

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germ of life, that can be analysed and assessed in precisely the same way as could be done three days later. If it can be done earlier, there is no interference or destruction of the embryo. That point was overlooked, and I suggest that it should be considered by this Committee.

Hon. Members on this side of the Chamber and on Opposition Benches all support the general research which is now available. Let us consider what that general research will give without experimentation on human embryos. Vitamin supplementation may suffice to protect the embryo from spina bifida. The extraction of cells from people suffering from cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, Huntington's disease and retino blastoma will lead to greater understanding of all those diseases and the genetic factors responsible for them. Bone marrow transplants may be used to treat genetic blood diseases. Drugs can be used to modify the metabolism in Down's syndrome. Gene therapy can be used for cystic fibrosis to expand the span of life from 20 to 40 years and also to treat muscular dystrophy and cancer immune deficiency. I have also mentioned the introduction of a normal gene to replace a defective one during foetal life, and careful analysis of the female egg before fertilisation.

All those advances were achieved without the necessity of destroying the human embryo. It is right that we are asking the House to make a decision tonight. The Government have given sufficient time for the matter to be reviewed.

We must take the fact into account that there is a clear attitude to such research in Europe. The West German Max Plank institute does not support research using human embryos, and the current legislation in that country does not allow it. In France, there is no consensus on the Bill. In Norway, experimentation is prohibited, and in Denmark, there is a moratorium. The Council of Europe has stated that research on human embryos should be banned. Spain is the only country that permits it.

We must also remember--it has already been mentioned tonight--that on the Warnock committee there were seven dissenting votes in a committee of 16.

I do not wish to take too much time, but I have several further observations to make. Research using embryos has never been concerned with the treatment of genetic diseases of chromosomal abnormalities. It will not help the present generation of sufferers from cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy. The authorisation of the destruction of embryos will not eliminate genetic disease. Embryo research is not used as a general method of screening for genetic diseases, because in many cases it is impossible to discover the mother at risk. It is only discoverable when there has been a history of disease in the family, or perhaps when a previous child has a problem.

It will take more than 1,000 years to halve the gene frequency in the population for cystic fibrosis and 760 years for sickle cell anaemia. The problem must be viewed in perspective. Embryo research relevant to a tiny percentage of couples who are known to be at risk is important, and therefore must be considered. The figure works out at about 1.8 per cent. of full-term births, of which only 15 per cent. are due to single defective gene cells which can be identified in the embryo.

There are many ways to the top of the hill, and research on all fronts must be advanced for the relief of infertile people. We all agree with that, but must we pay no regard

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to human dignity? Must we bring the country to moral bunkruptcy? That could occur if we ignore the important issues of life. I recognise the importance of IVF and the fact that much has been done, but it can cause chromosomal abnormalities. The removal of one defect can cause another, which can lead to later abortions. For example, the incidence of spina bifida is five times greater than normal in such cases, and the incidence of congenital heart disease is six times greater. I am fully in favour of IVF, because it is a way ahead. General research can help. Concentrated effort could come. I should like to know from the Minister how many abortions have resulted following IVF. I tried to find the figures, but was told that they were not available because they are not collected. I had a word with several distinguished doctors, who tell me that the numbers are considerable.

IVF schedules are physically and emotionally disturbing. A super-ovulation should not be encouraged, because it causes the lining of the womb to be unreceptive and produces eggs of low quality. In many cases of singletons, a caesarian delivery is as high as 41 per cent.

I have never been one to suggest that we must reconsider the matter. I am worried about the moral issues involved. Scientists must bow to the moral wishes of the nation. Otherwise, they will speed ahead towards moral bankruptcy, which we wish to avoid. It is easy to concede 14 days in a Bill and to believe that thereafter the embryo will be protected by the majesty of the law, but what happens when the period is extended to 28 days or longer? What happens tomorrow night, when we find that we have lost more than 1 million children who could have been born and adopted? I would be out of order if I went further on that point, but we should be careful before we make a move. Would not a moratorium be appropriate on this occasion? 8.15 pm

Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North) : I will not detain the House long. I must start with an admission and an apology. I have listened to most of the debate, being absent for only a brief time, and it seems that I am the only Member who has come to listen to the debate not knowing where he stands. Like all hon. Members, for months I have been receiving many representations from different schools of thought and shades of opinion. I have been unable to crystallise my thoughts to a definitive position. I am the first Member to speak who has had to admit that degree of doubt.

I have both read and listened carefully. My confusion has arisen not because of people's claims about their own beliefs but because of their claims about the beliefs of those who oppose their beliefs--the claims that pro-lifers have been making about pro-researchers and vice versa.

The confusion caused by the pro-lifers is the most obfuscating. Tonight hon. Members have made claims which, when checked against the Bill, are deliberately misleading. That undermines any validity of their other claims. This evening, it has been said that the research announced only four days ago would be permitted if the amendment were accepted. Schedule 2(3) makes it clear in black and white how voting for the amendment would effectively prohibit the issue of licences to carry out

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research for the treatment of infertility for increasing knowledge on the causes of congenital disease, for increasing knowledge about the causes of miscarriages, for developing more effective techniques of contraception or for developing methods for protecting gene or chromosomal abnormalities in embryos before implementation. That last one would effectively debar the type of work done by Dr. Winston. Yet tonight, we have heard it claimed that the amendment would not adversely affect the work.

That is not the only misleading claim that we have heard tonight. I am not saying that those misleading statements were made deliberately. The matter is complex and sophisticated. It can easily be misunderstood by those who are not staying wide awake, keeping their minds clear and thinking carefully. I am sorry for anybody who has not listened to the debate and who must vote at 11 pm, because the decision is not as easy as it may seem.

I want to attract the Minister's attention to one particular issue on which I need clarification. Among all the confusing statements, one particularly important claim has been made by the pro-lifers. I apologise to the House for using such shorthand terms, but I cannot think of a phrase that would be more readily understood. It has been argued that the fault lies not in using excess numbers of conceptuses--pre-embryos--that have been used for the purpose of infertility treatment, but could possibly lie in ensuring that an excess number of pre-embryos were created in order to create the very excess on which to undertake research.

If the Minister was able to give an assurance, to me alone if not to everyone, that the monitoring body and regulations would ensure that the quantity of conceptuses created for infertility treatment was strictly regulated and that therefore excessive numbers would not be created, that would remove a major area of concern before my decision about which Lobby to enter.

We have talked for about four hours, and I shall continue to listen intently to the debate until 11 o'clock. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Atterliffe (Mr. Duffy) said that, on Second Reading, those against research got the better of the argument, but I believe that that depends on the position one adopts when considering the problem. I have been in constant doubt about this matter ; I have assiduously tried to reach a conclusion in my heart and mind, and I see the debate in a different light from my hon. Friend.

I am still undecided, but, on the balance of the debate that I have heard tonight, I shall be voting to leave the Bill unamended--unless, of course, I hear a declaration from those advocating the other side of the argument that is somewhat less emotional and a good deal more clinical than they have been today.

Sir Michael McNair-Wilson (Newbury) : I hope that it will not sound discourteous of me if I say that those who seek to explain that embryos are less than human beings seem to be trying to find ways in which to assuage their conscience so as to enable them to support the research that has been conducted in past years.

One may ask, of course, if one allows tens of thousands of foetuses to be aborted every year, many of which are normal, why should we concern ourselves with the fate of embryos up to 14 days? Surely the answer is that we are talking about the sanctity of life. Whether we choose to play with words about embryos, pre-embryos, foetuses or

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whatever, every one of us started our lives as an embryo. We should not therefore imagine that what we are talking about is something different from ourselves.

Life used to be considered sacred--all life, at any age--but now I believe that we are willing to consider life as sacred only after birth. If that is so, on what morality do we base that judgment? Clause 11, in common with the rest of the Bill, is an attempt to write the ethics of medicine by legislation now that the medical profession has given up its own code of ethics embodied in the Hippocratic oath that all doctors used to swear. It is important to remind the House of the words a doctor swore :

"The regimen I adopt shall be for the benefit of my patients according to my ability and judgment and not for their hurt or for any wrong. I will give no deadly drug to any though it may be asked of me nor will I counsel such and especially I will not aid a woman to procure an abortion."

That oath and the ethics it enshrined lasted the medical profession from the fourth century BC to the second half of this century--more than 2,000 years--and it spanned the pre-Christian and the present Christian age. Now, without it, I believe that the medical profession lives in a world of ad hoc ethics ; hence the charge that doctors and scientists play God and intend to play God unless the House chooses to put some limits on the actions that they may be about to take. The Bill and clause 11 do nothing to answer that charge.

We, as mere laymen, are being asked by the ancient and honourable profession of medicine to provide it with a new code of ethics based on such laws as we think are in people's best interests. All leaders of the medical profession should be concerning themselves with this serious situation. At present that situation suggests to me that members of the medical profession have lost their way and are not sure what professional standards they and we should expect of them. In turn that means that, without that certainty in the minds of members of the medical profession, we all have cause for concern whenever they come to us asking to be allowed to carry out some research that they have not done hitherto.

Where are the limits beyond which the medical profession is not prepared to go? What will it not do in the name of science and research? Recently I asked a professor whether he would find it possible to sanction the idea of a head transplant--he did not find the idea entirely objectionable.

Perhaps the fault is ours, as we expect modern medicine to be able to cure every known disease, or, if not to cure, at least to do something about it. It is as if we believed that each one of us has the right to be born perfect, that everyone should be able to have a child, that no one should be asked to bring a baby into the world that might have a handicap and that if a woman becomes pregnant it is her choice whether the baby is born, regardless of whether that baby is normal or not. Medicine is therefore required to satisfy all of our needs, though sadly not those of the baby, and seems incapable of questioning the ethics of what it may be doing, whether it should be doing it at all or whether the end justifies the means.

In a world that is suffering from over-population and that is still afflicted with so many curable illnesses, can the medical profession justify the huge expenditure of vast resources on the more esoteric aspects of medicine, when that money could buy immediate and more easily achievable relief for so many?

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Medicine, however cannot resist dangling the carrot of hope before us, without being quite honest about what is involved and the chances of success. So it is with embryo research. I do not believe that congenital conditions such as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, infertility or any of the 4,000 single-gene defects are part of the divine will, or that we should not seek to discover what causes them. Therefore, I do not oppose research to discover their causes. The question that troubles me about the Bill and clause 11 in particular is whether embryo research is an emollient and sympathetic phrase for what is more often than not embryo destruction--at a later stage of life, it would be wilful killing. We are talking about 14 days in which scientists can pursue their theories on living human matter ; then the embryo's life is ended. As has already been suggested, how soon will it be before we are told that, if only we could have another 14 days, they could achieve so much more? Like everyone in this debate, to answer my doubts I have done my best to read the briefing material sent to me by both sides, including many personal letters from constituents and handicapped people. I had the opportunity to visit the Hallam clinic. Perhaps I started with a bias in favour of embryo research because, superficially, what it seems able to offer could rid mankind of so much human suffering. Had I spoken on Second Reading I would have come down on the side of embryo research, but because of that debate and the opportunity that it gave me to read and talk about the subject, I have continued to seek just one essential fact on which to decide how to vote tonight. That fact is : after four years of embryo research, what has been achieved--not what may be achieved--in the search for the causes of congenital illness?

8.30 pm

I want to be able to say without contradiction that something has been achieved as a result of embryo research, which has cost the lives of so many embryos. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will tell the House at the end of the debate how many embryos have perished in the name of research. I estimate that many thousands have done so. I stand to be corrected on that. What has been achieved? What discovery has been made? What handicaps and their causes are now understood? Which congenital illnesses and conditions, which would not have been soluble, are now partially or entirely soluble? I cannot find such a statement. I can find promises of what may happen. I am told that embryo research is on the edge of a breakthrough. It seems that in reality the only part of human embryology and fertilisation that has actually borne fruit is in vitro fertilisation, which, unlike embryo research--if I may divide the subjects- -is about creating life, not destroying it, and which I support. Apart from that, the answer seems to be virtually nothing. I shall quote from the Medical Research Council's document that was sent to us. That is a body, if ever there was one, that should be able to answer my question. It said :

"If we could understand what causes chromosomal abnormalities in the egg and early pre-embryo it might be possible to suggest modifications of human behaviour and nutrition around the time of conception which would prevent many causes of, for example, Downs Syndrome. Such an understanding is already coming from MRC research on eggs

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and pre-embryos. If research on human fertilisation is prohibited it will be more difficult to discover what goes wrong."

Note that it says "more difficult", not that it will be impossible. It does not say that it must have embryo research, but that it would be more difficult if it did not. It is not my job to make its job easier, but to ask it to live up to certain ethical standards. Professor Martin Bobrow, the Prince Philip professor of paediatric research at Guy's hospital, has already been quoted. A document that he sent to me states :

"There is no claim that work on pre-implantation embryos would lead to treatment of genetic disease."

There is nothing definite in either the MRC's or the professor's statement. Someone may say, "Surely, there was that announcement last Thursday from the Hammersmith hospital about a breakthrough enabling the sex of an embryo to be established in the test tube, which could not have happened without research. Doesn't that mean that, if a handicap is carried in either the female or the male line, we can now select the embryo of the right sex as the one to be put back in the mother and so ensure a healthy baby? Isn't that proof that embryo research is bearing fruit?" It would be churlish of me to wonder why that knowledge came to light just before today's debate. One might describe it as a lucky coincidence. However, is that the whole story?

I shall give the House an example from my own family. I had four cousins, two boys and two girls. One of the four, the youngest boy, contracted muscular dystrophy and died when he was 16 years old. I understand that muscular dystrophy is carried by women, but affects males. Bearing in mind the research carried out at Hammersmith hospital, which has been so trumpeted in the national press, and assuming my uncle and aunt had known of the test, would my one male cousin, who has survived, is now in his 60s and has his own family, have survived or would his embryo have been removed because it was male and there might have been the chance that he had muscular dystrophy? That is what is involved in the breakthrough, which is a terribly hit-and-miss method, a rough and ready selection by sex, whether or not the other embryos carry the defective gene. Have we not been told how research generates round the world? In those countries where, sadly, males are so much more valued and respected than females, might not that same research be used as a dreadful selection process whereby the sex was, or was not, in effect, a sentence of death?

I return to the Medical Research Council's booklet and the other pro- research literature. Where are the hard, proven results of four years' research--it may be longer than four years--to dispel my doubts and make me argue that the work going on in the centres specialising in embryology, which annually use so many hundreds of embryos, potential humans, will allow me to go into the Lobby tonight and vote for the work to continue?

It is no wonder that the sinister shadow of Dr. Mengele falls across this debate. We may say that that could not happen, but I can remember so well when we first heard of his experiments and thought that nobody in the world would ever consider replicating such dreadful experimentation. Yet here we are in the House of Commons solemnly putting forward the possibility of allowing research to take place on that embryo from which every human springs.

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When embryo research is like surgery, or any other form of medical technique where saving and enhancing life is the sole object--I am not talking about embryos and post embryos--I shall suppport it. But now after four years, in which the medical profession has had free rein, so little has been achieved and so many tiny lives ended, the means do not seem to justify the end. Medicine and science should look elsewhere for the conditions that they are seeking to cure.

Mrs. Audrey Wise (Preston) : I rise with considerable humility to speak in this debate. We have heard many excellent speeches and many hon. Members have drawn on personal experiences and anxieties. I was impressed by the speech of the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mrs. Barnes), who made an excellent case. She had experiences on which to draw. We heard the moving speech of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), who witnessed the deaths of two handicapped children and who has previously told the House that, were it not for the fact that screening and abortion rights existed, he and his wife would not have felt able to go ahead and risk two further pregnancies which, happily, resulted in the births of two healthy boys.

I have no such experiences on which to draw. I have been incredibly lucky and have two healthy children. I look for the disasters and anxieties in my life but, happily, they are missing. Therefore, I feel lucky and have a great sense of humility. I feel so lucky that it is almost scarey. But it gives me the opportunity and the duty to say, "I have been lucky, but that gives me a responsibility to think about those who are not so lucky." It is in that spirit that I have tried to follow the debate.

I have found the debate difficult at times because many hon. Members have dealt in absolutes, which I could not do. We have heard that one cell is life--a human being. I cannot follow that line. I do not believe that the fertilised egg is a human being. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) told us that it is not a potential human being ; it is an actual human being with potential. I cannot follow that line either. I cannot regard a cluster of undifferentiated cells, some of which will become placenta and others membranes, as a human being. As soon as we depart from absolute certainties we are into areas of degree and of judgment. There is no escaping that.

I believe that sense is on my side in this argument. By no means will every fertilised egg result in a baby. A fertilised egg may try to develop in the tubes and may never reach the womb, so it will be impossible for it to become a human being. Its relationship to the mother is one of a malignant growth that will kill her if allowed to develop. So how can I agree with hon. Members who want me to regard such an entity as a human being?

Such absolutes should not determine the course of the debate. There is no escaping using our own judgment--and I have found it difficult to make judgments. I resent the fact that those who see everything in absolute terms have encouraged the polarisation of debate. It has become difficult to stand back and examine the real problems, but I want to examine them.

Of couse, it is possible that this research may be misused and that the permission given by the House tonight--I trust--will be misused. Many things are misused. The pen is misused for the most appalling purposes. The camera is and the computer likewise. Much of our scientific research and development is misused

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before it gets off the ground, because its purpose is to develop ways of killing. We in the House regularly vote research and development money for the production of armaments that can kill millions, not clusters of undifferentiated cells, but men, women and children of all ages, from unborn babies to people on their deathbeds. I have not heard hon. Members saying that we should not vote that money ; they do not adduce the sanctity of life argument on such occasions. Some of us make timid attempts to introduce it into those debates, but we do not get very far.

Because things can be developed and used for good or evil we must make choices and be vigilant, to ensure that scientific processes are not misused. The hon. Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) said that he had begun with a bias in favour of this research but come to the opposite conclusion. I started with a bias in the opposite direction, because I am aware that one has only to say the words "science" or "progress" to make some people bow down in admiration of their supposed omnipotence. I do not agree with that ; I have great scepticism about scientific endeavour. We must always be extremely careful that science is used ethically and in the pursuit of human happiness and well-being.

I began my consideration of this matter with doubts. I do not agree with genetic manipulation, for instance. I have not arrived at my conclusion in an arbitrary way, but I have reached one. I shall vote against these amendments.

8.45 pm

When, as I hope we will, we vote to allow this research to continue, by that we shall not be saying that this is the only sort of research that should be done--certainly not. We are not saying that only this research can give hope to childless people. Society has a duty, incidentally, to take some of the pressure off childless couples. It is not only because of natural drives that people feel inadequate if they remain childless. Society puts a great deal of pressure on such people, telling them that they are inadequate, and it is important to remove such pressure.

Many other lines of research need to be followed, but that does not mean that we should not go ahead with this research. Nor should too many resources be devoted to this line of approach--that would be another sort of misuse. I do not know where those who will vote with me tonight stand on this subject ; I do not know how keen they are to elevate this line of research above others. But I am not. I want it permitted and carried out but kept in perspective.

Many other needs have great claims on our resources. As a society, we are rather poor at deciding priorities. Nothing that I have heard in this House has led me to alter that view. We are not very good at deciding to devote enough resources to relieving the problems of handicapped people, the mentally ill or the elderly. We are not very good on the welfare of mothers and babies. Too many people live in bad housing and in miserable conditions, and that is avoidable. Nevertheless, my views on how we should use our resources do not mean that I think that we cannot devote any money to research of this kind. We shall need to preserve a reasonable balance, and that must always be a matter of judgment.

That is why it is proper to use legislation. I should not want to allow scientists and doctors, much as I respect them and their work, to be the only and untrammelled judges in this matter. I want society to take a stand and use

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its judgment, and in our democracy we do that through this House--not very well, but it is the avenue that we must use. Once the Bill is passed we shall have no excuse for saying that the matter is in other people's hands. It will continue to need our judgement of how to use legislation and of how much money to devote to it. That is entirely different from pretending that this is an issue of sheer absolutes.

It is neither sensible nor sane to afford to an undifferentiated cluster of cells the respect for life that we should afford the pregnant woman or the new-born baby. If that sounds a little insulting, I must add that, until I heard the hon. Member for Newbury, I had intended to use very temperate language ; and I have more or less managed it. I did not relish being told that those of us who want such research are looking for ways to assuage our consciences and that that is why we have chosen to make the division at 14 days. I can tell the hon. Member for Newbury that my conscience needs no assuaging. It is in perfectly good working order and is given regular practice.

Sir Michael McNair-Wilson : The hon. Lady will know that I could not have been referring to her, because she had not spoken when I made that comment.

Mrs. Wise : In that case, the hon. Gentleman has presumably been insulting all hon. Members who spoke before me and who said that they would vote for the legislation. That is an even more specific insult than the one that I thought the hon. Gentleman had in mind. I feel justified in saying that those of us who will vote for the research are not doing it unthinkingly. We are not doing it without conscience and thinking that that ends the matter for ever. Continued vigilance will be needed over the purposes for which the research will be used and the resources devoted to it. That is what life is like. We always have to make choices about priorities and it is reasonable for us to provide a legal framework within which such decisions and judgments can be exercised.

Sir Ian Lloyd (Havant) : I shall not follow the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) by trading insults, because I am not very good at that. I could not help reflecting while she was speaking that during the debate we have seen scepticism and dogma chasing each other in a rather unusual geographical pattern. It is usually all scepticism on one side and all dogma on the other or vice versa. Of course, that is what makes a debate like this so interesting.

Some time ago, I reached the conclusion that most of the very different problems that we address in the House are, in one form or another, boundary problems. Move the boundary or change the definition, and all hell breaks loose. When the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) spoke about where life starts, he was, of course, speaking about this fundamental boundary problem. We are most familiar with the geographical boundary, whether it is between nation states or empires or administrative jurisdictions, and with those between the public and private sectors, between categories of rights and categories of obligation, between the interests of producer and consumer, between the old and the young, the sick and the healthy. In the welfare state, the vast regulatory apparatus of who claims for what and when and for how much provides hon. Members with an endless source of fertile and politically productive controversy.

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We are less familiar with the boundary between the rational and the irrational. Although I wish to imply no obvious overlap of category between the scientific and the religious interpretations of a problem, research on the human embryo provides a classic and important illustration of the difficulty of definition and of prescribing legal boundaries in this area.

I have read what I suppose is a small fraction of the vast amount of literature on the subject, and I understood a small part of what I read. I will gladly give way to any hon. Member who claims to have read and understood it all. In my endeavour to be thorough, I even attempted to read the colloquium held last year by the Royal Society, to which I shall return. Humility obliges me to confess that I probably fully understand only the odd paragraph here and there. From that I draw two immediate conclusions. The first is that those paragraphs were of great significance. The second is that the matter is of great scientific as well as moral complexity. To that I would add a third, which is that the House remains singularly ill-equipped to pass judgment on these issues. But it is a responsibility which we cannot escape. Alfred North Whithead put the position very well in his Lovell lectures at Harvard university over 60 years ago when he said :

"The new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principle to irreducible and stubborn fact."

In this case, however, it can be argued that the principles are stubborn and the facts of great complexity. Most of the facts are very new. They are the product of one of the greatest scientific revolutions that the human race has ever known.

It is in this context that I should like to refer to a comment made during the Royal Society colloquium by a fellow of the Royal Society, Mr. J. H. Edwards of Oxford university :

"In the application of genetics to man we are dealing with problems of such depth and gravity, and with methods for their resolution of such complexity that even those experts in neighbouring fields of study find communication difficult false knowledge is a graver problem than clear ignorance."

The complexity in this matter derives from three sources. The first is that the scientific revolution pioneered by Crick and Watson in the 1950s has now led to an understanding of the origins and structure of life which was inconceivable not only to theologians but to scientists as recently as the beginning of this century. Few of us can claim to be familiar with molecular biology, although some of us may appreciate its immense importance and potential. None of us can comment with the authority of a scientist working on frontiers of knowledge that are moving forward almost as we watch. Dogmatic judgments and conclusions which some of us may be tempted to reach will enjoy a half life of perhaps a few months.

Secondly, the profound concerns arising from deeply held religious conviction, which express themselves quite legitimately and have done so in the debate in what is at best caution and at worst a total opposition to the advance of knowledge in this area fuels emotions and colours every debate.

Thirdly, there is the concern that arises from the belief that human genetic engineering enables man to emulate God, not merely in His most benevolent role as Creator

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