division_name: Human Fertilisation and Embryology
motion: <p>
   I beg to move,
  <p> 
   
    That the draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Research Purposes) Regulations, which were laid before this House on 12th December, be approved.
  <p>Like others we have conducted research using human bone marrow cells as a source of adult stem cells. We too have succeeded in differentiating these cells into bone and cartilage lines. But what is clear by the scientific evidence is that adult stem cells are scattered and hence difficult to find. While some research on bone <p>marrow has shown its capacity to develop into liver cells, research has shown that adult cells are likely to be much more limited in terms of development potential than embryonic derived stem cells which are truly pluripotent. Without research on embryonic derived stem cells it is very unlikely indeed that adult stem cell research will ever realise its true potential.
  <p>interested in redefining the family.
  <p>Two in five of both men and women in Great Britain reported having a long-standing illness or disability in 1996-97.
  <p>I do so hate all this stuff.
  <p>it is clear from reading these debates that no one envisaged that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 would also allow human cloning to take place--[ Official Report , 15 December 2000; Vol. 359, c. 899.]
  <p>1. The 14 day limit on embryo research: what is its moral justification, what are its legal implications? How does it relate to the person/chattel distinction in law?
  <p> 
   
  2. How do we define infertility and genetic abnormality? What are the moral implications?
  <p> 
   
  3. Should children be allowed to know of their genetic origins (the moral and legal perspective)?
  <p>moral Status of the Embryo.
  <p>I am very concerned about the unrelenting pressure that a few scientists and pharmaceutical companies are putting on legislators, like yourself, to approve Embryonic Stem Cell Cloning (also called cell nuclear replacement). They are using carefully selected statements rather than the whole truth to convince Parliament that their vested interests are for the common good. This is a terrible abuse of democracy.
  <p>If every fertilised egg was indeed a soul, that is, an immortal spiritual reality created independently of the biological process, then, according to these figures, three quarters of heaven would be populated by souls that lived for less than a week. This does not seem congruous with what we know of a God who has chosen to create persons through a process of development.
  <p>We are not nothing but our genes. We must recognise that we are conscious beings able to form our own purposes, with powers both to understand and to control the laws of biology, as well as of physics. It may be our moral duty to scrutinise, criticise and regulate the projects of biological scientists in the light of our concept of a common good. It cannot be our moral duty to repress and prohibit altogether the exercise of their inventive and creative genius.
  <p>a matter of grievous concern that the Government should have selected dates for the debate and the vote on an issue of such profound ethical importance when many MPs may have left for the Christmas recess.
  <p>When, in 1990, the law was changed to permit embryo research, cloning was still science fiction; there was no debate about its ethics. It was never Parliament's intention to allow cloning, even if it had been conceivable. The new regulations are being presented as if they merely clarified the existing law, whereas in reality they mark a radical departure from it. This is a serious abuse of parliamentary procedure.
  <p>it is the view of the Expert Group that the long-term promise of stem cells from adult tissue could equal or surpass that of embryonic stem cells.
  <p>One of the things that I envy in people like the members of your community, who have a faith, is that you have the comfort of having certainty about these questions. I have to try to work out how to balance the different arguments and I am still struggling with that.
  <p>The more research is done, the more scientists seem to realise the potential of adult stem cells. They are able to turn into different types of muscle and nerve i.e. they are pluripotent. Swedish scientists have discovered that stem cells from bone marrow have grown into nerve cells. Blood-producing stem cells can grow into muscle cells, and vice versa.
  <p>contradicts the conventional wisdom that stem cells derived from adult tissue have restricted potential to differentiate.
  <p>This stance accords the embryo a profound moral respect on the basis of its potential to develop into a human being, but it sees that ethical status of human personhood as being something that develops with the increasing complexity of being. While an absolute stance is the present official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, a developmental view of human personhood has not historically been absent from Christian thinking. St. Thomas Aquinas held the Aristotelian opinion that 'ensoulment' (presumably, human personhood) took place at 40 days for a male foetus and at 90 days for a female foetus.
  <p>The developmental view underlay the majority opinion in the Warnock Report and it is the basis for the HFE Act of 1990, with its restriction of embryo growth in vitro to 14 days and its permission to use embryos within that limit for tightly defined and specifically licensed research purposes. The embryo is being regarded as very much more than a 'speck of protoplasm', for it may only be manipulated for serious purposes that otherwise would be unattainable. The limit of 14 days is based on the end of the possibility of natural splitting (producing identical twins from a single embryo) and the beginning of differentiation with the onset of the primitive streak. It might be held to be a limit judged with some degree of conservative caution.
  <p>besides skirting the ethical dilemmas surrounding research on embryonic and fetal stem cells, adult cells . . . might have another advantage: they may be easier to manage.
  <p>it is not known whether the cell nuclear replacement technique will be successful in creating an early human embryo.
  <p>gaining knowledge about how stem cells differentiate, and on how this process might be controlled to produce the particular kinds of tissue needed for treatment, is only just beginning.
  <p>the human embryonic stem cells and fetal germ cells that made headlines in November 1998 because they can, in theory, develop into any cell type have so far produced relatively modest results.
  <p>The redefinition of human embryos as mere biological material or "totipotent stem cells" in order to allay public concerns smacks of semantic trickery rather than responsible debate.
  <p>The human embryo is entitled to a measure of respect beyond that accorded to an embryo of other species. Such respect is not absolute and may be weighed against the benefits arising from the proposed research.
  <p>ought to have a word with my little girl and ask her about the value of life. All she wants is that I am freed from this awful disease so that she has a mother able to care for her throughout her young life, rather than one who is increasingly disabled by a disease for which there may be a cure if this research is allowed to proceed.
  <p>It being Seven o'clock,  Mr. Deputy Speaker  put the Question, pursuant   to Order [this day]. 
  <p>The House divided:  Ayes 366, Noes 174.
   