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Human fertilisation, embryology and the kitchen sink.
By Steve Hanlon | May 12, 2008
I notice this evening an article on the gay news site Pink News about how the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill benefit lesbians,
Good to see because there is way too much discussion about Frankenstein children, saviour siblings and animal embryos. It’s really important to see that the bill has an impact across society, not just the traditional family unit which seems to have been filling the airwaves today.
I can’t help but feel that sometimes bills such as this become a collection of too many disparate issues that only loosely fit together. It’s not lazy thinking, there is a lot of business and so these issues have to be dealt with in the most appropriate manner. But debate about the legal rights of gay parents, for example, is drowned out by a completely different issue - which diminishes the importance of what’s being decided.
On top of this, we then have amendments about reducing the abortion time limit and you start to feel that the only thing missing is the kitchen sink.
There are many good things in this bill that ought to be supported, and which I expect will be given that the vote is whipped. The right for scientists to research cutting-edge genetics is, in my view, necessary if we are serious about taking the next step forward in medicine.
And the legal rights of gay parents is good and should be supported too. It’s just a shame that the two issues are conflated into a single bill, and that the embryology research and abortion debates should drown out the other good parts of the bill.