Embryo bill, ethics and politics

Last Modified: 22 Mar 2008
By: Keme Nzerem

Party policy - or a matter of conscience? Another Catholic churchman wants Labour MPs to have a free vote on the bill on embryo research.

The Archbishop of Cardiff said he'd privately advised MPs to vote against parts of the legislation when it comes before the Commons later this year.

There are suggestions the government may offer a compromise, allowing individual MPs to abstain on ethical or religious grounds. But that's not enough for the Catholic Church.

Combining human and animal embryos amounts to monstrous Frankensteins according to some, while for others it's a possible route to cures for debilitating and potentially fatal diseases such as Alzheimers.

But this is a debate the government doesn't particularly want our elected representatives to have - unlike the Tories and Liberal Democrats; they're wielding a 3-line whip over the new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

So Labour MPs unhappy with allowing research into controversial interspecies embryos, many of them Catholic, will be allowed to abstain, but won't be allowed to vote no.

Now leading Catholic clergy are urging the government to allow MPs to forego party loyalty, and follow their conscience.

The problem for the government is that in January the Lords already voted down an amendment that would have banned the controversial embryos 296 to 96.

But that wasn't a free vote either - and it would be hard to justify why the rules in one house should differ from the other.

Abstinence is not enough to head off the naysayers. Opponents just don't understand the science of this.

Labour's parliamentary Christian group which is spearheading a no vote reckons they number something in the teens.

It's hardly going to rock Labour's 67 strong working majorities, although the real political prize may be destabilising the cabinet. Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy are all thought to be deeply unhappy.