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This week in Parliament, MPs will have voted on a controversial piece of legislation: the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Unfortunately, I could not be in Parliament to vote as I have been in hospital having a minor sinus operation. Because it is an important vote of conscience I think it important to let people know how I would have voted. Many constituents have written, emailed or called me to express their opinion on this legislation. There is great depth of feeling on both sides of the argument. Having looked carefully at what is being proposed, however, I broadly support the Bill’s intentions. On the most controversial issue, the creation of admixed embryos, Britain is recognised as a world leader in embryo research and its regulatory regime is far more robust than that of other countries. If there’s anywhere that this new research should be implemented, it is here in the UK. I appreciate that many find such scientific research morally objectionable, but I also think that it must be balanced against the extraordinary benefits that this new research could have in fighting life-threatening and debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. On the question of abortion law, I am against any change. The supposed improvement in the life chances of prematurely-born babies is insufficiently proven to justify divisive adjustments to our current law, and so I am not in favour of reducing the cut-off limit from 24 to 20 weeks. What’s more I think that alterations to the legal abortion time will have only a limited impact on accidental pregnancies – the causes of which lie much more in social breakdown than in legal fine-tuning. The Bill also allows for the development of ‘saviour siblings’. This is a radical form of fertility treatment which would enable parents to create a child with an almost complete genetic match to a sick brother or sister to allow for a cord blood, stem cell or bone marrow transplant which might save their life. This kind of procedure has only been permitted by the Regulator on very rare occasions – and it’s right that it should remain so. I am concerned about the genetic copying of existing life, and would almost certainly have voted against this proposal. Finally, the Bill as it stands removes the requirement for fertility clinics to take into account the need for a father when providing treatment for instance to lesbian couples. I don’t dispute that children can thrive in a same-sex or single parent household – but I do not approve of deliberately creating life in a way that deliberately excludes from a child the opportunity to have a father.
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Alan’s view on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill
