Science and Technology Committee

HUMAN CLONING

• “There is a real danger that cures will be delayed by diverting funding into cloning and embryo research. For the sake of patients we have to focus on adult stem cells.”

• “The UK Parliament was correct to allow Theraputic Cloning under strict regulation, as it has the potential to cure millions of people who suffer from serious, chronic diseases, which cause such misery to them and their families, worldwide.”

• “Once an embryo is aware of itself then it enters “the club of life” and should have full human rights, but until then if there are valid reasons we may intervene.”

SURROGACY AND DONATION

• “What I find ‘scary’ is being an ordinary housewife voicing an opinion in the public domain without fear. I do not have the advantage of a medical training or the jargon to express it. Strangely, those with scientific training are equally reticent to post their opinions. The silence from the scientific community as well as the public one was deafening. My thanks to the Science & Technology Committee, the eDemocracy Project Manager and the whole team at Hansard for all their hard work.”

• “There is a fundamental difference between animals created with some human genes, and the reprogramming of the human genome by animal reprogramming factors which have evolved to create rabbits, cows etc. The implications of this difference are both biological and ethical.”

• “How sad that UK scientist Ian Wilmut has decided to go ahead with human cloning in the same week as the Koreans have come to their senses.”

CONSENT AND CONFIDENTIALITY

• “Wrongfully attributed paternity is no comparison to a situation whereby the medical profession, the donor, the state, the biological parent and the social parent all conspire to deliberately create and deceive the artificially conceived person (along with other members of it’s family and the rest of society) about the true nature of it’s origins.”

• “Even if the man had given his written consent to IVF, we must consider the welfare of the child. It does not take much imagination to understand that a child brought into being by a situation of semi-posthumous parenting, may suffer as a result.”

• “To withhold information from donor conceived people simply out of fear that the number of gamete donors may fall is little more than letting one’s ethics be dictated by market forces.”

NEW FERTILITY TREATMENTS

• “When donor sperm is used by heterosexual couples, married or not, the resulting donor offspring is deprived of the company and influence of it’s biological father and paternal relatives during the most important formative years of it’s life. To deliberately deprive a child of it’s biological father is little short of criminal.”

• “Research consistently shows it is in a child’s best interests to grow up with two parents, a mother and a father.”

• “All conception outside marriage is wrong before God. Let us repent of all other practices.”

SCREENING AND THERAPY

• “IVF, as normally practised, is wrong because it leads to the death of unused embryos.”

• “Does pre-implantation selection really (in the mindset of the majority of informed people) constitute “Lethal discrimination against a disabled human being”?”

• “The USA has just passed a bill allocating $10 million for research and cord blood banking. The UK should follow suit.”

GENERAL COMMENTS

• “The law and society should make it much easier for infertile couples to adopt children. This is what my wife and I were able to do and I regret the increased difficulties now being placed before would-be adopters.”

• “Both adult and embryonic stem (ES) cell research should be pursued; while promising data is emerging with the use of bone marrow derived adult stem cells, it seems likely that for some diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, cells derived from ES cells hold more promise.”

• “I too am concerned by the all too common assumption that science should provide the final answer on any given issue. Scientists should be witnesses in the debate, not judges. Science shows us what can be done; scientists are valuable experts to inform us about the nature and physical implications of any given process.”

• “It is helpful to remember that scientists are also human beings, mothers, fathers and sometimes even caring ethicists. The way foward is indeed a debate about our responsibilities”