UK Church Leaders Deplore Passage of Anti-Life Bill

The vote was a tragedy for our country. As a direct consequence of this legislation the value of human life will be eroded even further in the United Kingdom.

LONDON (The Catholic Herald, UK) - Church leaders voiced their grave disappointment last week after the House of Commons approved the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill, allowing for the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien said that the value of human life had been eroded further as a direct consequence of the Bill that was passed by a majority of the lower House on Wednesday last week.

Speaking at a conference of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, Cardinal O'Brien - who has been vocal in his opposition to the Bill and has worked hard to condemn it - said: "The vote was a tragedy for our country. As a direct consequence of this legislation the value of human life will be eroded even further in the United Kingdom."

He continued: "We can apportion blame and lament inaction, but we must also recognise that those elected by us, in our name, for the most part reflect the society from which they come. Our fight, our battle, should not, therefore, be solely with the elected but with the electorate."

The Bill, which had its Third Reading in the House of Commons on October 22, will remove the clause which enshrines a child's right to a father in law as well as allow for the production of hybrid human-animal embryos. It does not rule out human cloning and allows for the creation of genetically similar "saviour siblings" which could be used in order to treat a sick brother or sister. Amendments proposed for banning the cloning of human embryos were shot down in the debate, as were those looking for an express ban on cross-breeding between humans and animals.

MPs backed the HFE Bill by 355 votes to 129. Despite a three-line whip imposed on Labour MPs, 16 rebelled against the Bill, including former Transport Minister and Opus Dei member, Ruth Kelly. The Bill now goes to the House of Lords and could be law by November.

Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff spoke out against the passing of the Bill, which he said was "deeply disturbing". He said the Bill would allow the creation of hybrids and of cloned human embryos. He also pointed out that an amendment pushed through at the eleventh hour could allow for the creation of embryos with tissue taken without consent.

He said: "To make matters worse the Government is now proposing that this can happen without the consent of the person whose cells are used."The creation of a human embryo is a deeply personal human action. To use someone's gametes or cells to create a human embryo without their consent is an infringement of basic human rights. It is an affront to human dignity. It shows disregard for the consciences of people who may not want their cells to be used to create an embryo. It is appalling that scientists could take cells from vulnerable people who cannot consent and use them in this way.

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"People have not been given a chance to say what they think of scientists using their cells, their DNA, without being asked, to make human-animal hybrids. When people find out that scientists are taking cells without asking to make admixed embryos they will rightly react. Who can trust scientists, if they can do this with your cells without asking you? This is neither ethical nor beneficial for science. It will harm public confidence in science and will thereby harm the progress of science."

As the Bill went to the Lords on October 29 Cardinal O'Brien wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemning the HFE Bill, which included new legislation allowing experiments comparable to those conducted in Nazi Germany.

He said: "Such behaviour was last seen under the Nazis. Following the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945, the full horrors of the Nazis' atrocities were revealed to a shocked world. The hideous savagery of their experiments convinced the civilised world that such practices must be outlawed forever. I am appalled that you are promoting a Bill, which seeks, by stealth, to create a regime where extracting tissue and cells from human beings no longer requires their consent or involvement."

Supporters of the Bill have placed a great deal of emphasis on the possibility of cures for genetic diseases such as Alzheimer's or cystic fibrosis through research on embryonic stem cells, at the expense, some have argued, of research on adult stem cells. Phyllis Bowman, the executive director of the Right to Life group, condemned the Bill, which she said was a "monstrous piece of legislation".

She said: "Throughout the debate, scientists have persistently claimed that experiments on the human embryo and 'admixed' embryos (human/animal) will bring great benefits in the form of treatments for diseases which at present are incurable. They feed on fear. They made exactly the same claims regarding human embryos in 1990 - but in the 17 years since then not even one treatment has materialised to help the sick - in comparison with around 90 treatments using adult stem cells, which are perfectly ethical. MPs were informed of this."The Church supports research on adult stem cells and those harvested from the blood of the umbilical cord. This research has proved to produce more immediate cures than embryonic stem cell research has.

The Times Higher Education Supplement reported last week that a renowned professor of regenerative medicine from Newcastle University whose work is focused on adult stem cells criticised both British funding agencies and the university for prioritising embryonic stem-cell research over adult stem-cell research.Professor Colin McGuckin, a Catholic who pioneered work on adult stem-cell research announced that he was leaving Newcastle for the University of Lyons with a team of 10 researchers to open the largest adult stem-cell research centre in the world.

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He said: "[France] is very supportive of adult stem cells because they know that these are the things that are in the clinic right now and will be more likely in the clinic.
"A vast amount of money in the UK from the Government has gone into embryonic stem-cell research with not one patient having being treated, to the detriment of [research into] adult stem cells, which has been severely underfunded." Spending on adult stem-cell research has declined by five per cent in the last four years.