If you intend to write to Peers or MPs what would be the points to emphasise?
First, it is simply no longer necessary to authorise destructive experiments
on human embryos or the creation of animal human hybrids. New scientific
breakthroughs by Professor Shinya Yamanaka in Japan, and Professor James
Thomson in America, have led to adult skin cells being converted into cells
that resemble embryonic stem cells. This renders experiments on human
embryos completely unnecessary.
More than two million British human embryos have been destroyed or
experimented upon since 1990 – and the experiments have not led to a single
cure anywhere in the world. The only justification in destroying yet more
human embryos is a macabre curiosity – a curiosity funded by taxpayers'
money, a curiosity which diverts public money away from life saving
therapies and cures.
While we have been dabbling in embryo experimentation and cloning, around 80
cures – and 300 clinical trials - have been documented using adults stem
cells. In Britain, this work has been starved of resources. For instance,
98% of cord blood, rich in stem cells and which has been used to treat 45
different blood disorders, is routinely destroyed (and only collected at
four NHS hospitals in the entire UK), while in the US there is a national
network of cord banks. 8000 life saving cord blood transplants have taken
place worldwide but just 1% are UK based. How many British lives has that
cost?
As Britain falls way behind in the development of ethical adult stem cells,
the Government has gone on diverting public money into unethical
experiments. Taxpayers' money has been poured down the drain instead of
using it to treat of patients with debilitating diseases. Some patient
groups and medical charities have been hijacked; falsely believing that
cures for everything from diabetes to Alzheimer's will be discovered using
human embryos. Some MPs fell for the deceit that unless they authorised
public funds and passed laws permitting embryo experiments they would be
condemning people to a life of suffering and pain. The same MPs are now told
that unless they allow animal human hybrid embryos they will be endangering
life saving work. This is worthy of the father of all lies. Well-meaning
people should not once again fall for this blackmail.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill also allows for the creation of
so called "saviour siblings." This would enable tissue and organs to be
taken from young babies and children. The Government Minister, Lord Darzi,
said: "The Bill does not limit which tissue can be used in the treatment of
a sibling ... and the Human Tissue Authority must approve any transplants
involving organs from living donors and for children who are too young to
give consent".
The Bill also extends the grounds on which organs and tissue can be taken
from "life threatening" reasons to "serious". This is truly alarming as,
Phil Willis, the MP who chaired the Committee which scrutinised the Bill,
said this definition could be applied to things like autism. In an interview
with The Daily Telegraph, he said that saviour siblings cannot currently be
used to help children with autism but it was an example of the kind of
serious condition that the committee believed should be tackled by the
technique. It is hard to see what kind of tissue could help to overcome
autism. However, if a child could be created to help with autism in an
existing child, what else could be classified as serious?
The Government should be challenged for using the casuistry that saviour
siblings are "donors". A donor has to give consent, and that is manifestly
impossible in what is proposed. Personal organ donation is often a generous
and altruistic act but it is always an act freely entered into. It is an act
of autonomy and personal choice but clearly a baby or a young child does not
have any say in this momentous decision.
The Bill deals with a whole host of other issues too - such as denying the
existence of a biological father - the remit and make up of the regulatory
authority (the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority), and the
provision of In Vitro Fertilisation.
It was ironic that as the Committee listened to the Government's case for
abolishing fathers, another Government agency, the Child Support Agency, was
pursuing Andy Bathie, whose sperm had been used to create a baby for two
women, whose relationship subsequently broke up. Mr Bathie is not recognised
as a legal parent of the child, but is now being forced to pay thousands of
pounds by the Child Support Agency. Mr Bathie was forced to take a £400
paternity test and his pay was docked.
Lord Brennan and I have been advocating the creation of a properly
representative and balanced National Bioethics Committee capable of
examining these complex and profoundly important issues.
Not long after the House comes back on January 7th 2008 votes will be taken
on whether such a national scrutiny body should be created. There will also
be votes on animal-human hybrids; on saviour siblings and the abolition of
biological fathers. Now is the time to write and urge Peers to use their
votes.”
For further details please read the attached Evidence submitted by The
Catholic Union's Joint Medical Ethics Committee or visit the website http://hfebill.org.
You can also contact Jim Dobbin MP, Vice President of the Catholic Union and
Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Pro Life Group, via the clerk of the
group, Julia Capps at
cappsj@parliament.uk.
November 2007: Lord Brennan on the Catholic Union
Catholic Parliamentarians have worked very hard, in particular Jim Dobbin MP
and members of the House of Lords. The current Parliamentary year commenced
with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Members of the House of
Lords including Lord Alton have been working to avoid the Bill becoming a
proxy or substitute Abortion Act without proper debate. There was a proposal
to invite Parliament to create a Joint Committee on Abortion Law. That would
be the prudent way of dealing with the issue. But the Bill has many other
important components.
It has been my recent experience that more than ever in much of
Parliamentary life there is a real sense of the secular versus the
religious. This is not of our making. It is intolerable to treat people with
religious belief as unreasonable. This attitude often develops into
prejudice or even bigotry. There is a danger that more and more religious
expression will be reduced to a reaction against this way of thinking. The
message of any Christian organisation should be delivered rationally and
coherently.
The Catholic Union has over the past few years gone through many changes,
and should now become more effective.
- Our new staff member, Emilia Klepacka, is an experienced person. She is a
Cambridge graduate with undeniable commitment to Catholic action. She
recently finished working for a youth organisation which has become a
worldwide body.
- Our new website will aim to attract not just more members, especially
younger ones, but also to become a vehicle to provide information.
Redevelopment of the website will help a great deal. Young people value
institutions which inform them and they choose organisations which are
effective.
The organisation is over 100 years old. Many members are getting older and
the organisation therefore needs revitalising. The future of Catholic
thinking lies with younger members of the Church, on whom, the Union, should
more rely. We must attract them and interest them. We must focus on
continuity.
Finally, what are our members to do? They must take action, in accordance
with the provisions of our Constitution, to ensure that Catholic views on
matters affecting Catholic principles or interests are known, understood and
taken into account (Art I.2.ii). We must use publicity to the full. People
do recognise that we have something to say. Let us say it well.
Lord Daniel Brennan QC
President
November 2007
November 2007: Lord Brennan on the need for a National Bioethics
Commission
Monday 19th November 7.25 pm, House of Lords, London
Lord Brennan: My Lords, I propose for the consideration of the House now and
in Committee the creation of a national bioethics commission in this
country. The great physicist Niels Bohr said that it was dangerous to make
predictions, especially about the future. He was right about his own
scientific world. We are now at a stage where the speed of scientific
advance is very fast indeed. It is outstripping the capacity of our people
to understand what is happening. It thereby impairs our ability to set an
ethical framework in which those advances should be made. That is not an
acceptable state of affairs in a democracy. Science must speak and explain
to us what it is doing and where it might go. We are entitled to what I
would call scientific social responsibility. With it we, the people, can
understand better, be more aware and therefore be able to participate in the
democratic processes about life sciences which so fundamentally affect us.
Regulatory control is plainly necessary in this area, but it is not enough.
Control may give people confidence, but an ethical framework will give them
trust. We should seek to establish a combination of the two under the
bioethical reforms. We not need only confidence and trust, but some basic
understanding about probability—the "mights" of life as against the "woulds",
"wills" and "surelys". Very few people ever think about probability when
examining the world in which they live. It is very important in this
context. Do they think about risk in this context? Hardly at all. They need
educating. We need educating. Therefore, it is appropriate, is it not, to
consider a national bioethics commission? While I agree with much of what my
noble friend Lord Winston says, I simply do not agree that we already know
what most people think about these issues. We, educated people, ask for
evidence about the public's feelings on things, but without any proper
understanding and awareness, how can they give us evidence? We have a state
in which one almost patronises them.
What of the commission? Its function was proposed over 25 years ago by Sir
Ian Kennedy, certainly not on any religious basis, but entirely because of
the ethical framework in which science was then moving. Such commissions
exist in Australia, Denmark, Germany, France and other countries, and they
work. The societies there benefit from those commissions. They do not
determine or decide—they inform; they make one aware; one understands better
and one plays one's democratic part more productively.
How might that apply to some of the issues arising within this Bill and
without it? Human reproductive cloning must remain illegal. It was made so
by a three-line clause in 2001. The clause that replaces it runs to nearly
40 lines, depends on definitions and introduces a regulation power. I am
sure that the Government want to maintain the prohibition, but we need
clarity; this is too much detail for such a plain point. A commission would
have clarified that as part of the general debate.
The Government thought one thing about interspecies cloned embryos and then
another; the debate swung one way and then the other. A commission would
have played its part in informing that debate instead of watching it, as we
did, lurch from one view to another. What of the prospects of future
embryonic testing? Humility before hubris in science is a wise approach. A
professor at UCL said yesterday that there had been gross overselling about
the prospects of genetic science—first, as to the range of cures, and,
secondly, as to when they might occur. I suggest that we should apply rigour.
Therefore, we induce into people's thinking that certain types of research
are necessary to solve these problems—rigour not promises.
Lastly, the Bill does not deal with adult stem cell research in any
particular way. The Joint Committee thought that it was unnecessary for it
to consider it. As far as I am aware, no public body in this country is
analysing the balance of benefit and cost between embryonic stem cell
research as figures under this Bill and adult stem cell research. Is that
appropriate? All those things would have benefited from a commission. There
are two riders. Sir Liam Donaldson spoke, as the right reverend Prelate told
us, of the medical ethics deficit in his profession. That means—does it
not?—that the deficit must be rectified from within medicine and from
without. The Joint Committee thought that this Bill was lacking in the
ethics underpinning it should have, as was found in the Warnock committee
approach. It said that that lack of underpinning finds no proper substitute
in public consultation on individual issues. Both those riders illustrate
the need.
What is the present state of affairs? The HFEA is a regulator. The Human
Genetics Commission gives advice which is directive; it is opinion advice,
not simply informative advice. The food and agricultural committees in these
areas do their best. None of them has a wide public role. My noble friend
Lord Winston was relatively kind to the HFEA tonight. On past occasions he
has been coruscating about what they have or have not done. The fact is that
it now regulates a £500 million industry with a sub-committee on ethics. Is
that really the right approach? I have spoken about the other committees;
what about Nuffield and the private sector? It is not a public body and it
is not independent in the sense of being accountable and transparent to the
nation. It has the advantage of one cleric sitting on it—he is the only
cleric on the HFEA; namely, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries
of Pentregarth. He was there apparently to fulfil the role of theology: the
designation is, "(Church of England)". That result means that we are left
with the Government. They tell us in the report that the present system
works fine. It tells us enough. "Us"? What about us—the people—not you? What
about Parliament? A Joint Committee on ethical issues is necessary. If we do
not have such a body we are left with some government regulators with
ethical committees, an unaccountable private body and the Government. In
Great Britain in 2007—this new age of science—that is not enough.
What would this body therefore do? It would be set up by statute with a wide
bioethics remit; it could function at reasonable cost; it would be
independent; and it would be continuous. I know of no country where the
participation of different views in any way detracts from the effectiveness
of these commissions on the countries in which they operate. What are the
benefits for us? It closes a democratic gap; it enables science to be
responsive to it and thereby responsible to us; it benefits the Government;
and it benefits Parliament because it compliments rather than subtracts.
The Joint Committee was reluctant to accept it. Using its phrase, I could
detect "no sound point of principle" why it was reluctant, unless it thought
that the recommendation was designed to avoid parliamentary decision making.
Far from it; it is to add to it as the basic democratic requirement. When we
talk about these things in a democracy, it is not just the letter of the
law; it is a culture of democracy that involves us all.