Sitting here blogging while waiting on tenterhooks for the vote in the Commons on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Musn’t watch more TV…I just heard a TV BBC 1 newsreader describe the debate on the creation of hybrid embryos for stem cell research as ‘a clash between science and ethics’. I was so angry I wanted to punch the screen. Huge numbers of ordinary people (and peers by a massive vote when the bill came through the Lords a couple of months ago) regard it as immoral and unethical to stop research that could benefit thousands of people. Far from being a clash between science and ethics it is more a straight clash between medieval church ignorance and 21st century secular realities and medical advances.
For many people there is nothing more immoral than the official church intervening to stop a process that seems to have nothing at all to do with God and seeks to impose a particular set of values on other people. Compassion, sympathy, the promotion of healing; that’s what stem cell research is for… where on earth did the Church go so wrong? I have an idea that when the Archbishops apply for entry to the pearly gates, St Peter will be asking some very searching questions on what exactly the motives of the Church were in creating their strange notions of what is ethical. Why do they feel God is so proscriptive of women’s bodies being under their own control? And let us be clear that the MPs who will oppose this research are religious affiliates acting directly on behalf of their church. The opposing ministers, Ruth Kelly, Des Browne, Paul Murphy are all practising Catholics. Of course there is no guarantee stem cell research from hybrid embryo lines will benefit anyone, but the chances are good and unless we do the research we will never know.
And tomorrow abortion again and I’ll get exercised about that too…
I’m adding on to this after the vote was comfortably won by the Government. My faith in the collective ability of MPs to resist religious dogma is renewed.
Way to go Baroness Murphy !! Well said…
However I would urge some calm about the comment of the BBC about the ‘clash of science and ethics’. Poorly worded, I know, but I don’t think they were trying to state a ‘false dichotomy’ of ethics on one side and science on the other, as though one can’t be in favour of science and be ethical.
My guess is that they were merely trying to catch people’s attention, rattle a few cages, and remind people that there is always discussion between what science ‘can do’ and what it ‘should do’ to benefit us, and be ethically acceptable.
I don’t have a particular problem with any of the proposals, but I think you would agree that the ‘saviour siblings’ argument is one which needs careful consideration, rather than just going headlong down a road which we may not easily be able to backtrack on. That way we can ensure there are sensible safeguards before we find we have opened a Pandora’s box.
You do make me jolly cross occasionally, Baroness Murphy, but on balance I would far rather have someone who is circumspect and looks at the issues dispassionately, than some of the scientifically illiterate ranting we here from time to time in connection with bio-ethics representing us in the Houses of Parliament.
Please keep up the good work. BG
I’ve noticed the same sort of comments by a number of BBC Broadcasters – they seem determined to portray it as a ‘battle’. For example it is a ‘bid to prevent hybrid embryos defeated’, rather than ‘hybrid embryo research recieves commons backing’…
An attempt to hype it all up? (It not being possible, of course, for a political debate to be anything BUT adversarial, naturally…-rolls eyes-) Or something darker? (Paranoia?)
Either way, glad to see MPs made the right decision – it is indeed unethical to deny potentially lifesaving research on the basis of outdated religious dogma largely written by monks many hundreds of years ago, blindly adhered to.
Religion is a personal matter: I am all for people believing in a higher being, or an afterlife, or living their life in a moral way (being charitable etc.) because of their religious beliefs.
It should never, however, have a place in the governance of a modern, democratic state.
What is so interesting (depressing actually) is that there is almost NO reference at all in the House of Commons debate on this crucial bill – or in the media – that an extended, thorough and hugely learned debate has already taken place in the House of Lords!
During that debate key experts on all aspects, technical, ethical, moral, medical spoke with great conviction and experience. I do wonder why greater us is not being made of it?
I’m not sure of my own ethics on this one except to say that another ethical debate is going on surrounding the search for Higgs Boson the holy grail of particle physics.
http://www.astroengine.com/?p=161
Human Fertilisation and Embryology from a fundamental religious view concerns itself with the notion that people have a sole and animals do not and to mix the two might deny a person entry to God’s domain. It is part of a monotheism that allows us to destroy the world’s environment and to treat animals in the way we do. Without this moral mechanism we would not be undertaking the research at all for fear of offending some God in a pantheon.
I’m not a geneticist but my limited understanding says that all DNA based life comes from six chromosomes, if that is the right word to use, and that given time and an evolutionary prerogative a butterfly can become an elephant or any other creature.
This means that the DNA make-up of all life has more in common than not so in theory stem cell research should not be a matter for concern.
The moral issue perhaps is one of evolution and the onion like wrapping that locks out the redundant parts of the genome that eventually end up as ourselves. This interlocking and fail-safe has taken eons of time and the creatures that exist today especially in a Darwinian sense are very stable but not perfect.
It is the nature of this imperfection that makes each one of us unique. It is also the prospect of creating a chimera by accident or otherwise that is a worry for people.
However, by early termination of the cell this should never happen. But some in a Frankenstein way might just wait to see what happens, this I would find morally repugnant but how would I stop it, especially if the scientist was a godless atheist?
Yes, the research should go ahead but it will take us into an undiscovered country. God help us all!
I am quite sure the media is playing it’s usual game of selecting a convenient narrative irrespective of what is actually going on.
I am not well versed in the area so I am not making any judgment on the merits of the proposals.
However I do find the attitude that you betray rather amazing. It reinforces what I was saying is a post, The Madness of Modernity, just the other say about how sentimental and unreflective we are. Scientists certainly seem to be the new high priests. Although not a Christian, I am relieved that there are some religious people involved in the legislative process. By the way, I think scientists in general seem to have a particularly weak grasp of ethics, and some of the propositions we hear from them strike me as abhorrent. The main thing that worries me is the absolute certitude about their own judgement, not unlike the above sentiments. (I have a science and engineering training by the way and have great respect for scientists–within the narrow circle they limit themselves to, namely physical causation.)
Relied to this yesterday but forgot to press ‘submit’ button so this will be short and I’ll add on to Lord Norton picking it up in his blog.
James, I agree.
BG. If I only make you jolly cross sometimes, that’s not too bad. I agree that the anti-saviour sibling argument is more potent than the others, it is a troubling thought that a child could be created solely for the purposes of providing a cure for another child. But the individual cases the HFEA have considered were never like that and of course we never query the very diverse motives parents have for having children in the normal way. We only ask ourselves about motives because of the use of technology. In the event I abstained on that one in the vote but I’ve since become more convinced that it is ethically sound if HFEA continues to monitor it.
Senex, I did not know there were all these mad websites about CERN and particle physics. I’m married to a quantum scientist who is constantly amazed by the misunderstandings about tiny particles. There was one noble Lord a few months ago who aired the notion that maybe homeopathy ‘worked’ through quantum chemistry; ‘fraid scientists gave that one short shrift.
Chris, it is possible to be sentimental, reflective and very concerned about ethics without sharing the ethics of any religion and while I welcome religious people contributing to a debate, I would like them to be honest about the source of their attitudes. Of course there are many people of faith in the Lords and many of them express well thought out ethical ideas which make us all think more deeply about moral issues–I’m thinking here for example of Lord Harries, the former Bishop of Oxford and some others such as Lord Elton.
I’m inclined to agree that scientists and doctors often have a weak grasp of ethics. But they are certainly not today’s high priests; they simply despair at the profound ignorance of scientific method, which in the end is about asking questions. This has to be at odds with dogma of any kind.
Baroness, can you explain why just under half of UK GPs refer patients to homoeopaths? The figure is from a recent New Statesman article, under the heading:
‘Homoeopathic medicine is founded on a bogus philosophy. Its continued use is a drain on NHS resources and can endanger the health of patients’
http://www.newstatesman.com/200804170029
Note: I have a slight scepticism about the figure presented since it appears to be exactly the same as that from a 1986 paper (Reilly et al) in the Lancet.
Tiz
PS my thoughts on the HFE bill are here: http://sic.phantom-rouge.co.uk/
Your husband of necessity must be a man of faith as quantum physics relies upon this, that is in the mathematics of probability.
Hi all. I for one am very happy with the way the bill has been debated and voted on – though stramgely there almost seems to be more blog debate now, after the voting in parliament, than there was before the bill went through. Really strange. Anyway, as Tizzy alluded to, I’ve compiled a whole bunch of statistics on abortion rates etc on my blog, [sic], at the address above. Would love to hear comments and opinions.
I find myself in agreement with Bedd Gelert about the wording of the coverage – bills are not battles, they’re conversations. Or at least they should be. As for embryology, saviour siblings, hybrid embryos and so on, I’m for anything that will save lives – I think any parent ought to be, if they’ve ever thought about what they’d do if their own child had leukemia or any of the other illnesses that could feasibly be treated as a result of this research.
I also see no reason why a baby brought into the world to save the life of their sibling would be loved less by their parents – if anything, surely they’d be even more loved and appreciated, for having saved their older sibling.
nice blog!
Some might be interested in knowing that the Solar System Heliosphere is shrinking or has shrunk:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/23sep_solarwind.htm
I take an email flyer from http://spaceweather.com/ as sunspot activity can cause disruption to electrical power lines and IT services.
An increasing amount of cosmic rays reaching us may increase the number of thunder storms and related violent weather events?
Not good for arctic northern lights tourism either.