The House of Commons will vote this week on the government’s human embryology bill. It will also be voting on how far the state should regulate family life, how far MPs rather than government and arm’s-length agencies should decide on ethics and whether an MP’s “conscience” should override the liberties of ordinary citizens. The Commons will have a chance to stamp the medieval demand of the Catholic Church that MPs obey its edicts rather than their judgments.
In other words it is quite a week in parliamentary history – even without considering the merits of the legislation itself.
I was for five years a member of the relevant agency, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Not a day passed without some mind-crunching clash of human emotions passing its desk. The authority was set up under the original 1990 act licensing in vitro fertilisation, which offered hope of pregnancy to thousands of childless couples. I doubt if any modern act has been the architect of so much happiness.
Read it all.
Simon Jenkins: Family planning is one area in which we don’t need MPs’ help
The House of Commons will vote this week on the government’s human embryology bill. It will also be voting on how far the state should regulate family life, how far MPs rather than government and arm’s-length agencies should decide on ethics and whether an MP’s “conscience” should override the liberties of ordinary citizens. The Commons will have a chance to stamp the medieval demand of the Catholic Church that MPs obey its edicts rather than their judgments.
In other words it is quite a week in parliamentary history – even without considering the merits of the legislation itself.
I was for five years a member of the relevant agency, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Not a day passed without some mind-crunching clash of human emotions passing its desk. The authority was set up under the original 1990 act licensing in vitro fertilisation, which offered hope of pregnancy to thousands of childless couples. I doubt if any modern act has been the architect of so much happiness.
Read it all.