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Almost ten years ago, after the 1999 Donaldson Report recommended allowing scientists to clone human embryos for stem cell research using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), Triple Helix called the research 'unethical and unnecessary' and sounded a strong note of caution. We said that the enthusiasm for this new technology...
The 1967 Abortion Act caused 6.8 million abortions. The 1990 Human Fertilisation And Embroyology Bill [1] takes us several steps further by bringing in more liberal embryo research, saviour siblings, animal-human hybrids, fatherless IVF children, and by making legal without explicit consent the use of tissue from children, mentally incapacitated...
The High Court in October turned down her application, but in the light of public interest allowed her to proceed to the Court of Appeal, while making it very clear that her arguments were extremely unlikely to succeed. [1] The parents of Daniel James, a 23-year-old rendered tetraplegic following a...
'Abortion fight “will go on after next election”, as MPs defy public opinion to keep 24-week limit', thundered the Daily Mail. 'Abortion debate: MPs are out of touch', concluded the Telegraph. 'Widespread disappointment at vote on abortion', observed the Times. These front page headlines, accompanied by high resolution ultrasound images...
Since November 2007 CMF has issued just two press releases. One decried the 'stealth liberalisation' of abortion policy implicit in the early trial of medical abortion in 'non-traditional' settings. The other called on the government to invest more actively in developing the NHS umbilical cord stem cell bank. Yet despite...
As Triple Helix went to press the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was entering its final Parliamentary stages. We have consistently argued that the proposals for animal-human hybrids, saviour siblings and removing the need for a father for IVF children threaten individual, family and societal life more than any other...
A famous CMF one-liner that I often quote is this: 'As medical students you have more time now than at any time in your life.' But in fact, it's not true; everyone has 168 hours in each week and 52 weeks in each year. You may have more discretionary time...
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill left the House of Lords on 4 February and will enter the House of Commons within weeks. It threatens individual, family and societal life more than any other piece of legislation for decades. A powerful lobby of medically qualified peers and science institutions such...
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, currently before Parliament, does not specifically deal with abortion but does nonetheless open up the whole of the Abortion Act 1967 for amendment. This is because its predecessor, the 1990 HFE Act, lowered the upper limit for so-called 'social abortion' from 28 to 24...
In order for a belief to be considered delusional, argued the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers, it must be held with absolute conviction and not be changed by compelling counterargument to the contrary. The determination with which the British government has pursued embryonic stem cell research, despite its failure to...
