As I write this commentary, the House of Lords is about to vote on the future of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. But, as you will read in this week's BioNews, the issue is being complicated by parliamentary shenanigans. The cross bench Lord and anti-abortion campaigner, David Alton, has tabled a procedural amendment to the issue before the House of Lords. If passed, Lord Alton's amendment will postpone any vote on this research until after a House of Lords select committee has considered the proposals.
Lord Alton maintains that there has been scant opportunity for discussion of this issue. But this is untrue. First, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Genetics Commission published a joint report back in December 1998. Then the government asked the Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, to form a group to consider the issue again. Donaldson's report, which was published last summer, came up with similar recommendations to that of the original joint report. And in between those two government commissioned reports came the deliberations of, amongst others, the Royal Society, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the British Medical Association, all supporting an extension to current embryo research regulations.
Of course there's nothing wrong with having another consideration of the issues. But it's hard to see what can come out of such an enquiry that is substantially new or different from what has gone before.
Let's be clear of one thing. Lord Alton's intention in tabling his amendment is not to promote debate: it is to postpone the commencement of research that he finds morally abhorrent. The anti-abortion lobby, having resigned itself to losing the arguments against embryo stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, has clearly decided to employ wrecking tactics as a last ditch attempt to stop the new research purposes coming into force at the end of this month.
Lord Alton seems to have won over a few supporters to his wrecking amendment on the grounds that there hasn't been enough discussion of the issue in the House of Lords. But even if his amendment is passed - and the draft regulations fall - that support will be short-lived because it is not based upon support for the idea that embryo stem cell research and therapeutic cloning are inherently wrong. There simply isn't majority support for that notion in the House of Lords, the House of Commons or in most other public bodies.
But delaying a decision on the future of this research is not tantamount to sitting on the fence. Any Peer voting against the government this evening should know that whilst the House of Lords treads water about research that has already been widely debated and endorsed, the millions of patients who could benefit from this research will continue to face pain and premature death.
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