Printed from: https://www.cmf.org.uk/advocacy/pressrelease/?id=8
Published: 18th July 2002
The report, 'Developments in Human Genetics and Embryology', concluded that 'the HFEA's decision to allow tissue typing in conjunction with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis went beyond the scope of its own public consultation. It is vital that the public are taken along with decisions of such ethical importance.'
CMF General Secretary Peter Saunders said, 'The HFEA has been quite rightly taken to task for its arrogance in over-stepping its remit and making a decision it had no authority to make. The decision last December to allow pre-implantation diagnosis and embryo selection in order to ensure the birth of tissue-matched donor babies, set a dangerous and unethical precedent.
'It was unethical because it allowed embryos that fail to fulfil selection criteria to be discarded. This runs counter to historically accepted codes of medical ethics such as the Declaration of Geneva (1948) which requires that doctors maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception even against threat. Disposing of human beings, at any stage of human development, on the pretext that they are genetically inferior or surplus to requirements, is not treating them with respect. It is true that in very rare circumstances, the only way of ensuring that a tissue-matched donor is born, is to use this kind of discriminatory eugenics. But the end of saving a human life can never justify the deliberate destruction of other innocent human lives.'
On 13 December 2001, the HFEA decided to allow tissue typing in conjunction with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for serious genetic diseases. This decision led to a clinic being awarded a licence from the HFEA to implant an embryo with a genetic profile that would enable the baby to donate bone marrow to an older sibling with beta thalassaemia.
When questioned on the decision, HFEA chair Dame Ruth Deech, asserted that 'The public has been consulted about preimplantation genetic diagnosis'. But the consultation of which she spoke, which was begun in November 1999 by the HFEA and the former Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing, did not address the issue of tissue typing to benefit an existing family member. In fact, the HFEA/HGC Joint Working Party set up in December 2000 to consider the results of the consultation had specifically ruled out such a procedure, stating in its report that 'there were sufficient ethical difficulties with this approach that it should be subject to further discussion'.
Further discussion did indeed take place before a decision was made, but only within the HFEA's own ethics committee, chaired by Michael Nazir Ali, Bishop of Rochester.
Added Peter Saunders: 'The precedent was also dangerous as well as unethical, for two reasons. First, despite the HFEA's assurance that the procedure will be used only in 'very rare circumstances and under strict controls', the ruling is likely to lead to a slippery slope whereby designer embryos and fetuses can be created and destroyed for more and more trivial reasons.
'Second, it reduces the donor child to a commodity. The HFEA is obliged to give high regard to the welfare of any child produced by artificial reproduction when they are making decisions like this. But it cannot be in the best interests of any child, however much they are subsequently loved, to be created for the primary purpose of providing transplant material for somebody else.
'The use of umbilical cord stem cells in bone marrow transplants is an exciting scientific advance, which if successful, offers the chance of a cure for otherwise fatal inherited blood disorders. The risk of umbilical cell harvest to the donor baby is negligible, as after birth, the umbilical cord is not needed. But in allowing embryo selection and disposal alongside this procedure the HFEA has embarked on a eugenic policy, different from that employed in Nazi Germany only in the age of the subjects marked out for destruction'.
Steven Fouch (CMF Head of Communications) 020 7234 9668
Alistair Thompson on 07970 162 225
Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) was founded in 1949 and is an interdenominational organisation with over 5,000 doctors, 900medical and nursing students and 300 nurses and midwives as members in all branches of medicine, nursing and midwifery. A registered charity, it is linked to over 100 similar bodies in other countries throughout the world.
CMF exists to unite Christian healthcare professionals to pursue the highest ethical standards in Christian and professional life and to increase faith in Christ and acceptance of his ethical teaching.
