Embryo bill unethical, unnecessary and dangerous, says SPUC

Embryo bill unethical, unnecessary and dangerous, says SPUC Westminster, 19th November 2007 - The House of Lords should reject the government's bill radically extending destructive embryo experimentation, says the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will be debated at 2nd Reading this afternoon in the House of Lords. Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, commented: "The principal objection to the bill is the way in which it further demeans the status of the human embryo - the delicate and critical first stage of our existence. The bill promotes a range of unethical, unnecessary and dangerous practices. Such practices include the genetic manipulation of embryonic children for research purposes, the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos, and eugenic 'search-and-destroy' tests for disabling conditions. "The Bill also sanctions the creation of cloned embryonic children and then killing them for their stem cells, despite the fact that even the creator of Dolly the sheep has abandoned cloning technology. Adult stem cell research is already providing benefits for patients in scores of conditions, whereas over two decades of destructive embryo experimentation has lead nowhere, except towards a society debased by eugenics, rather than based on equal human dignity. "The House of Lords should reject this Bill outright, because fundamentally the bill represents bad ethics and bad science."