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Every time I have been pregnant, I have had the great good fortune that my children were wanted and we eagerly anticipated them. It is difficult to imagine how it must be for women who profoundly do not want to be pregnant, who do not know what to do, who do not speak English, who may be 14, or who may be 48 and already have four grown-up children. Abortion is already so stigmatised that we must be very careful when we tread down this path.
In the end, although we have many disagreements, I presume we all agree that every abortion is a tragedy, and that every child should be born into a home that wants it and loves it. At least we can all agree with the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) when he said that if we want to try to make life easier for families, the most important thing for us to do is to improve sex education in schools and relationship education so that people treat one another with respect, so that young girls know that they do not need to sleep with their boyfriends in order to be important and in order for their boyfriends to love them, and so that people have respect for themselves and one another. That should be comprehensively taught in our schools, and we should also ensure that people have access to abortion and to information, so that we can all aspire together to ensure that when a child is born, it is wanted and loved.
6.29 pm
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con): With 104 recommendations, the report by the Science and Technology Committee is as deep as it is wide. As a current member of the Committee, I did not play a part in its production. Given its size, I am quite glad about that. I thank the original members of the Committee, especially its former Chairman, the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), for the inquiry and for the clear report and recommendations.
The report rightly and necessarily challenges our emotional, ethical and religious boundaries. In the field of human fertilisation and embryology, scientific advances, developments and possibilities arise almost daily. I am concerned about the group of people who donate in order to help childless couples to conceive and have children. Recommendation 33 criticises the Government in relation to the removal of anonymity for those donors. It states:
“We regret the Department’s poor use of evidence in policy-making and its failure to commission and have published the necessary research underpinning its decision on the removal of donor anonymity.”
One could argue that there is now a threat to the flow of donors who have been giving willingly. In their response, the Government reject the recommendation on the basis that they used questionnaires, consultations and surveys to discover the views of interested parties. However, discoveries in social, behavioural and economic science often require concerted effort through research or the commissioning of research for science-based evidence.
My question to the Minister—if she would please listen—is this: what scientific evidence was used to inform the Government’s decision completely and retrospectively to change the policy on the disclosure of information on donors? The service provided by donors to couples struggling to conceive is undeniable and self-evident. If the policy is not based on appropriate evidence, the Government may undermine the supply of donors and create a great deal of unhappiness for childless couples in future.
6.32 pm
Dr.
Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD): It is a
pleasure to speak in this debate. I tried to catch your eye for several
reasons, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have a long-standing interest in this
issue. I was
mentioned several times earlier in the debate. I was a member of the
Science and Technology Committee that worked on the report—work
being the operative word—and I am a current member of the
Committee. I am a member of the British Medical Association’s
ethics committee, having been re-elected by doctors last week. In
addition to all that, I am the Front-Bench spokesman.
The introductory speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) was all-encompassing of the main points of the report and a very fair version of it. He inherited the report and cannot claim that it is his baby, to coin a phrase, but he described it well.
The hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), who chaired the Committee, did a fantastic job in difficult circumstances. I hugely admire his commitment to science and to his work in the Committee. I extend those remarks to the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), for whom I have huge admiration that increased, were that possible, as I listened to his speech.
Producing the report was difficult, because five people supported many of the recommendations and five people opposed them. The difficulty faced by those of us in the notional majority was that when it came to debating and voting on the recommendations, the minority had found it difficult to turn up because of the pressures that have been described. It is hard to develop coherence when people vote four against one in some sittings and five against five in others.
I do not accept that the report is libertarian. It is liberalising. However, it does not argue for a change in the 14-day limit, which is the fundamental limit in the 1990 settlement and in Warnock; it does not argue against the Warnock consensus on the gradual acquisition of rights in consideration of the interests of the embryo and the foetus; and it does not argue, as it could have done, for liberalisation of abortion law. It was not extremist or libertarian, but it is fair to say that it was brave.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority felt that it was attacked in the report, but it was not, as the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) explained. I must be careful about the HFEA, because two of its last three chairs are constituents of mine. The estimable Ruth Deech and the estimable Bishop of Oxford, recently retired, are extremely senior people in their field and brook no unjustified criticism. However, the report should not be seen as a criticism of the HFEA, which does a difficult job using a law that is 16 years old and creaking at the seams and should not be dragged through the courts.
I greatly enjoyed the speech by
the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton). Although I disagree with
her, she speaks for many people. She made several points that are worth
responding to, including some in which she mentioned me. She talked
about society’s distaste for some of the report’s
recommendations, although she did not provide data to back that up,
except in the case of sex selection, which I accept that a majority of
people currently oppose. However, it is not good enough for us to base
our law and lawmaking on the yuck factor, particularly when it involves
fundamental rights such as the reproductive rights of other adult human
beings. That is why the Government were right to legislate to permit
gay adoption although
a majority of people found that distasteful and something that they did
not understand. I am fairly sure that the hon. Lady voted against
permitting adoption of children by gay couples. The Conservative
approach is usually to argue for less state intervention in private
lives unless there is good evidence of harm that requires it. That is a
reasonable position. However, it was suggested in several well reasoned
contributions that the instinct on some of these issues is to regulate
and to legislate to restrict freedom, in which case it is necessary to
provide the relevant
evidence.
Much has been said about abortion and whether we should debate it. Recommendation 77 argues for a future debate after a review of the law. The hon. Members for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) and for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), who are assiduous members of the Committee, spoke well and clearly on the subject. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East that there have been lots of debates on abortion, in Government time or otherwise. There have not. We had the Abortion Act 1967 and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, and last July I called an Adjournment debate on abortion time limits. Other than that, I can find no record of parliamentary time devoted specifically to abortion, other than on ten-minute Bills. We need to have such a debate in order to retain public confidence.
The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) gave a full-blooded pro-choice speech that I greatly enjoyed. It is important that that view, which reflects the majority view in the country, is heard. We do not often hear it because the other side is well organised and feels equally strongly about such matters. However, the hon. Lady must acknowledge that her argument—and the reasons that she gave and that the Stopes report set out—that the individual decisions are for women to make applies at 25 weeks as well as 24, and that Parliament must set a limit. The question is how Parliament determines that limit.
In 1990, the limit was based on viability at 24 weeks. If that period has reduced, the hon. Lady may continue to vote for 24 weeks as a practical limit, and I might support her, having listened to the arguments for why any such reduction should cut across the rights of women in difficult positions. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said, Parliament must debate that and make its decision: for a practical limit of 24 weeks, a viability limit of 24 weeks or a lower limit, if it believes, on the basis of scientific evidence, that the limit on which viability was previously based has reduced.
I share the hon. Lady’s scepticism about whether medical advances have reduced the time on which viability is based—if we believe that to mean a reasonable chance of surviving a reasonable length of time without unreasonable disability—from 24 weeks. However, like my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, I do not know the answer and Parliament should have an opportunity of examining the science before deciding.
Our
recommendation in the report went beyond viability and considered other
issues, including medical and social advances that suggest that, for
example, access to early medical abortion, which is an easier way to
have abortions—if we are to accept abortions, we should not
force women to go through more difficulty
than necessary—reduces later abortions. There is a good argument
for making access to early medical abortion
easier.
The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East set out why we believed that sex selection for social reasons might be considered, and that good arguments against it would have to be made. He also clearly set out our reasons for supporting research.
It has been said that I have strong views on the suggested welfare of the child provision. That also applies to the rest of the Committee. I believe that a provision for considering the welfare of a potential child when dealing with the creation of families by the small group of people who are infertile is discriminatory. It is the wrong way to protect the welfare of the child, which we must do. Social services and child protection bodies are best placed, when a child is born, to make a risk assessment, especially if they have had a warning when someone began the treatment process that there was some anxiety. Experts should make such an assessment, not gynaecologists or general practitioners who hardly know their patients and are not in a good position to make such decisions. We heard evidence in Committee that such intervention was pointless because it was ineffective and ignored, and that the birth of only 10 children a year was avoided through the process. They could be looked after through the other means that I described. Do we want state regulation of fertility? I do not believe that we do, certainly not without good evidence that it would be better to do that. Are we genuinely arguing that it is better not to be born than to take such steps?
On the need for a father, I believe that it is discriminatory and restrictive to subject some women to such a test. The state must have good reason for intervening in such matters and there is no good evidence to show that the children of lesbian parents or single women who specifically seek reproductive treatment are any the worse off for that background. Evidence exists to show that children born to poor families do worse than those born to rich families. Would hon. Members call for clinics to check on the need for cash in the family before offering fertility treatment? No, of course we would not do that. That would also be discriminatory, even though there is more evidence of poor welfare in those circumstances.
Providing for the need for a father creates a market for internet services such as “Man Not Included”. If we start regulating those services, women will turn to strangers to be impregnated, and there is no protection in such cases. I do not believe that it is a matter of common sense because one person’s common sense is another’s prejudice.
Daniel Kawczynski: The hon. Gentleman says that we should not discriminate against lesbian couples but, unfortunately, life is discriminatory. The Almighty decided that children would be made through intercourse between a man and a woman. That is nature’s way of creating children. Why does he discount that?
Dr.
Harris: We could have a philosophical debate about what
God intended and how much of medical science is playing God and going
against what nature
intended. Treatment for erectile dysfunction also interferes with what
God intended but we do not hear many men arguing against access to such
treatment.
Daniel Kawczynski: Speak for yourself.
Dr. Harris: I shall not take the hon. Gentleman up on that in the debate because I must finish my speech quickly.
The hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) made a good point about the Government’s evidence for the removal of donor anonymity. He may know that one of the problems with that is that families who use donors choose not to tell the child because they do not want that to be discovered. That means that fewer children have access to such knowledge. There was no good evidence of harm in the current circumstances or of any benefit from following the suggested path. However, there was good evidence of the threat to gamete supply, which has been affected by donor anonymity. I feel strongly about the use of the precautionary principle, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough mentioned.
When there is clear evidence of benefit or likely potential benefit, the rule should be that there should be good evidence of serious harm before closing down research options. As the hon. Member for Salisbury said, there is a moral imperative to do good. We should try to maximise the benefits of the treatment. There is a moral imperative to treat infertile women and couples, to conduct research using stem cells to cure disease, and to develop new technologies.
Mr. Newmark: Is not there a moral imperative to protect the unborn child?
Dr. Harris: There is a question about what constitutes the moral rights of the unborn child and where they come in. We had the debate about the 14-day limit and that on the limit on viability. We are considering those matters. There is a balance to be struck.
The report is not a slippery slope. If there is a slope, it goes upwards. I do not speak for my colleagues, but allowing people to take advantage of the technologies and helping people when there is no evidence of harm constitutes an upward moral slope. In any event, we are not considering a slope but a step. That hard-earned legislative step is considered every 16 years at least. That is why we have confidence in proposing that we go down the path that the report suggests.
On the abortion limit and a debate and vote on viability, The Sunday Telegraph reported during the general election campaign:
“Harriet Harman, the Solicitor General, said: ‘This has always been a matter of individual conscience. If something is a free vote it cannot be in a general election campaign... We can debate it later.’”
The Government rightly acknowledge that they do not have a mandate for the status quo for ever and that they should give Parliament the opportunity, through a review and a debate, either to keep the status quo or to change the law. We must have that opportunity.
6.48 pm
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con): I congratulate all those who contributed to the excellent debate. I hope that it greatly improves the understanding of those who have listened to it and those who read it of a range of issues that will—I hope—come before the House and that require, as the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) said, a great deal of debate,
I thank the hon. Member for Norwich, North and the Committee for the excellent report. I do not have to agree with all of it to realise that it is an important piece of work. As the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) said, it shows the work of Select Committees at their best. It does not simply hold the Government to account, which is important, but tries to enhance Parliament’s role in the discussion and shaping of policy. That is especially apt in circumstances in which the House has responsibility not only to review the law but to make decisions in future about the shape of legislation on the subject—on a free vote.
The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) mentioned the two important words “free vote.” Before I venture into the subject of the report, I emphasise that point. Hon. Members who were present during the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 will recall that, two years before the measure was introduced, the Conservative Government said that such issues would be considered on a free vote. So they were. It is one of the Committee’s recommendations that the Government should make it clear that the passage of any legislation on this matter will be conducted on a free vote basis. That would certainly be true for the Conservatives, among whom there are different views that it is legitimate for any hon. Member to express.
The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough did a marvellous job of encapsulating many recommendations in a number of key themes. I prepared a set of notes for this debate containing all the issues that I thought we should discuss, but I have discarded them because, in the course of the debate, each of those issues has been raised. That is the mark of an excellent debate that has covered all the necessary ground extremely well. Some might think that it has covered more ground than was desirable, but I believe that we have done the subject real justice.
The hon. Gentleman touched on a matter of considerable importance, namely the procedure involved in taking this subject forward. I also want to emphasise that point before the Minister responds to the debate. On the strength of the consultations that have been carried out, I believe that we have reached a point at which the Government could come forward with proposals. Bearing in mind what happened during the passage of the Human Tissue Act 2004, I believe that the Committee is right to call for pre-legislative scrutiny of any proposed legislation. I hope that the Government will therefore publish a draft Bill for that purpose. I also hope that the Minister will confirm that that process will be conducted on a free vote basis. These are obviously matters for the House as a whole, rather than solely for Front Benchers.
The need for a Select Committee on bioethics merits further discussion. We have discussed a range of issues this afternoon, and there are others, such as surrogacy, that have not been mentioned. The need for discussion on other matters, including the use of gene therapies and genetic research, demonstrates the desirability of having a body of continuing expertise to be developed in the House, on which we could all rely. The Science and Technology Committee has done a marvellous job in producing this report, but we cannot ask it to be responsible for continuously updating Parliament’s views on these issues.
We say that we have had no legislation on these issues since 1990, but we have returned to them from time to time. I recall that, when we debated stem cell research four or five years ago, many Members felt as though they were suddenly being asked to consider the matter without having had the opportunity to do so before. The same applies to the issue of abortion, which, as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon said, does not get debated if we are not considering legislation on the matter. A Select Committee would offer greater opportunities to debate all these issues.
The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) made a powerful case for the need for a debate on abortion. Taking a very different tack, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) argued her case on the issue. I want to echo what the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon said on the issue. We cannot decide here and now whether there is sufficient evidence to justify the view that 24 weeks is too late a point—based on the viability of a foetus—for abortions to take place except in the most exceptional circumstances. The Committee makes a perfectly reasonable case for that subject to be examined. Although such an examination would not necessarily lead to the introduction of legislation, there are proposals about access to early terminations of pregnancy—involving a nurse carrying out the procedure, for example—that might require legislative reform.
My personal view is that it would probably be unwise for that issue to be wrapped up in the reform of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. I would not want hon. Members to have to take a view on the desirability or otherwise of a whole piece of legislation on the ground of their strongly held views on abortion, when the bulk of the legislation ought to be able to proceed without having to deal with that issue. In that respect, it would be helpful if Ministers would make it clear that those issues will be considered separately, and that, if a Committee of the House were to propose options for the reform of the law on abortion, the Government will do as a previous Government did and make parliamentary time available for the House to conclude any such discussions.
My hon.
Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) took us into the
question of the welfare of the child, on which the Committee made a
number of recommendations. The way in which the Committee did that was
rather curious, because it suggested that the welfare of the child, as
currently expressed in the legislation, should be abandoned, but then
went on to say that it should still be considered if there were a risk
of significant harm to a child, and that there should be a threshold in
such circumstances. I cannot see how a legislative framework that
requires third parties to intervene to bring a child into the world
cannot consider the welfare of the child.
Dr. Evan Harris: The Select Committee’s report states, on page 46, that
“if the welfare of the child provision is to be retained in any revised legislation it should be based on the principle that the state has a role in determining who can have fertility based on their personal history and circumstances.”
We also stated, in relation to medical treatment, that doctors are required to have regard to these issues without an extra layer of regulation. We do not need a specific provision that allows clinics to discriminate, because having regard to the welfare of the child is already embedded in good clinical practice.
Mr. Lansley: I understand that, but unless there is wholesale deregulation of assisted reproductive technologies, those who carry out fertility treatments must take responsibility within a specific regulatory framework. It would send the wrong message if we were to abandon a particular aspect of that framework. If we were to go down a much more deregulatory path, however, the situation might be different.
My hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) expressed a view that is shared by many people about the best circumstances in which to bring a child into the world. I do not think that we have any doubts about what they said; I hope that we do not. However, when we ask whom we should prevent from having the opportunity to provide a loving home to a child, that is a different question. The argument was put to the Committee that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was out of kilter with the Adoption and Children Act 2002, but it is not. Under the Adoption and Children Act, social services considering a child for adoption have to consider the child’s welfare very carefully, and to decide whether it will be cared for and given a loving home. That is a perfectly reasonable test. The issue is not whether the welfare of the child should be considered in any proposed legislation but whether we should preclude providing artificial reproductive technologies to lesbian or gay couples.
Mr. Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) was getting slightly confused when he talked about male erectile dysfunction? This is a serious point. If a man is treated for erectile dysfunction to improve his sex life, that is one thing, and I hope that, if two lesbians were having problems in their sex life, they would receive the necessary treatment. However, we are not talking about erectile dysfunction and sex lives here. We are talking about having children. I think that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon was confusing the two issues.
Mr.
Lansley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are, of
course, talking about children, and about the circumstances in which
couples, and in some cases
single people, have access to help to become a parent. From my point of
view, a gay couple who go through the process of surrogacy are capable,
and in some circumstances entirely capable, of providing a long-term
loving home for a child. If a lesbian couple or a single woman wish to
have fertility treatment—rather than, for example, donor
insemination—that is a perfectly acceptable way of proceeding.
Personally—I emphasise that I speak entirely personally—I
would prefer that, legislatively, we enabled children to be brought
into the world to parents who want to give them a loving home, using
the welfare of the child as a continuing measure, rather than trying to
restrict that. Too few children are being brought into loving homes,
and too many are being brought into unhappy homes where they are not
loved and not looked after.
The hon. Member for Norwich, North, who should take pride in ownership, with his Committee, of this report, said that he would rather take penalties in the last minute than go through this again. We would all prefer that, as he might succeed. He touched on the whole question of the HFEA’s role. I confess that I do not understand why the Committee concluded that the HFEA’s tasks of policy interpretation and of inspection and maintenance of standards are necessarily incompatible or subject to a conflict of interest. I think that its understanding of the role that fertility clinics play and of developments in technology—and its interface with clinical practitioners—are an essential part of informing policy. I accept his point that by dint of working with 1990 legislation the HFEA must increasingly make policy decisions that were not anticipated in 1990 and which legislators at the time would have expected to be brought back to Parliament for consideration. That is one of the reasons why we must have legislation, which I hope might establish a slightly more flexible structure that allowed Parliament to take more of the policy decisions, a decade or two hence, rather than leaving such matters entirely to the HFEA.
In passing, as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon spoke well of HFEA members, let me say that I have been impressed by their work in my dealings with them. I know that the Committee has had criticisms of them, not least in the past. I am grateful for the work that Dame Suzi Leather has done as chairman. She is now moving on, and although I do not necessarily agree with every one of her statements, I think that she has helped tremendously and tackled some difficult issues extremely well in a public context.
My
hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury (Robert Key) and for Braintree
(Mr. Newmark) touched on the contest between scientific capability and
the framework in which it should be exercised. I am not sure that I
could ever help my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury with his
question about what heaven might consist of, and I doubt that he was
asking my advice on the subject. However, his comments about not
stopping science are terribly important, and pre-implementation genetic
diagnosis is a good example. We are clear that there are circumstances
in which we would not want PGD to be used. For example, would we expect
it to be used to try to eliminate a small increased risk of a certain
disease later in life? No, I do not think so. In that area, however,
the legislation will introduce not broad prohibitions, but a range of
criteria, which will have to be determined over time and as science
develops. That is one of the compelling reasons for having an interface
between lay and scientific views. As the Committee made clear, however,
that interface should not just take place in the HFEA but in a dialogue
between the HFEA, the scientific and medical community and Parliament.
It is important for that to dialogue to continue.
To echo a point that was implied by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree’s comments, science may continue to change, but science does not drive ethics. As we have in part set out to do, we must make clear not just the ethical framework but the ethical standards that apply to this area of technology. Reproductive cloning is a good example. I cavil slightly at the argument that reproductive cloning technology might have changed in 20 years’ time, which of course it might—human reproductive cloning might even have been achieved in other parts of the world. However, I cannot for the life of me see why this country’s legislative framework should do anything other than say clearly that we are against it and that it will not happen here. I do not subscribe to the view that because science changes, our law must change. On some matters, we must be quite clear. The legislation will contain both broad prohibitions and sets of criteria in certain areas, and we must be clear about the distinction between the two.
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