Militant atheism, wicked untruths from the church or the island of Dr Moreau?

In November 2007, in an effort to update the laws on fertility treatment and embryo research, the British government introduced the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

Key proposals in the Bill are:

ensuring that all human embryos outside the body — whatever the process used in their creation — are subject to regulation;

regulation of “inter-species” embryos created from a combination of human and animal genetic material for research;

a ban on sex selection of offspring for non-medical reasons;

retention of a duty to take account of the welfare of the child in providing fertility treatment, but removal of the reference to “the need for a father”;

recognising same-sex couples as legal parents of children conceived through the use of donated sperm, eggs or embryos;

altering the restrictions on the use of data collected by the regulator to make it easier to do follow-up research; and

increasing the scope of legitimate embryo research activities, subject to controls.

While the Bill relates only to the British Parliament, for now, its passage or otherwise will be of great interest to scientists, members of the various religions and ordinary people around the world.

It purports to bring existing laws up to speed in the areas referred to, but many are concerned that it represents a quantum leap into the unknown; not so much a paradigm shift as reinventing paradigms altogether.

Guy Rundle, in an article for the Guardian‘s Comment Is Free, admonishes Cardinal O’Brien, head of the Scottish Catholic Church, for bringing God into the debate. It is, he believes a matter that concerns humanity as a whole:

“The question that has barely begun to be asked is whether the categories that make that existence meaningful — the division between human and non-human in particular — can be abstracted from their given biological base, or whether in doing so we start to undermine the basis by which we live. What is the cultural effect, decades down the line, of a widespread mixing of human and non-human genetic material? To what degree would it wear away at a sense of the specialness of human being that is the necessary ground of love and obligation?

“Considering these new technologies more widely, what does the possibility of designer babies, saviour siblings, manufactured sperm, do to the sense that a person’s unique being, and their absolute right to be considered an end not a means, is grounded in their ‘givenness’ — their emergence from nature rather than manufacture?

“Supporters of the technology cite Galileo, opponents Mengele. Neither is relevant. To believe that every moral question can be resolved by analogous reference to the past is to deny that history happens, that we fundamentally transform our existence. We are still applying the reasoning we use about non-human nature and technology, to apply to the human condition, without realising that it is a categorically different matter. This moment, these technologies are unprecedented, and they demand a much deeper and wider discussion than they are currently getting.”

This may, however, seem like a whole lot of theory to most of us. Here’s a Times of London Q and A:

What does the Bill do?
Britain’s laws governing fertility treatment and embryo research are 18 years old, and there is wide agreement that they are out of date. The Bill reforms IVF rules that many doctors consider anachronistic, and regulates new areas of research.

What are its provisions for fertility treatment?
It lifts the requirement that doctors consider a child’s need for a father before starting fertility treatment, it bans sex selection for social reasons, and it introduces new curbs on the sale of sperm over the internet. It also writes into law the circumstances in which embryos can be screened for genetic disease, or for their suitability as tissue donors for sick siblings.

What about medical research?
Experiments involving embryonic stem cells and therapeutic cloning are already legal, but the Bill also permits scientists to conduct research on “human admixed embryos” that contain both human and animal material.

What is a human admixed embryo?
It is an umbrella term for an embryo that contains both human and animal material, which includes chimeras, hybrids and cytoplasmic hybrids or “cybrids”. Chimeras are formed by merging human and animal embryos; hybrids by fertilising a human egg with an animal sperm, or vice versa; and cybrids by inserting human DNA into an animal egg from which the nucleus has been removed.

Why do scientists want to make these?
To study disease, for which cybrids are particularly useful. In genetic terms, these embryos are 99,9% human, and they can be made from the DNA of patients with conditions such as motor neuron disease. These cells can then be used to investigate how these conditions progress, and to develop new treatments.

What are the safeguards?
It is already illegal to culture any human embryos, including the admixed variety, for more than 14 days. It is also illegal to place admixed embryos in either a human or animal womb. Both laws will be retained, and scientists must show that their research is “necessary or desirable” to be awarded a licence.

What are the ethical objections?
Critics, particularly from the Roman Catholic Church, argue that admixed embryos are an affront to human dignity and the sanctity of embryonic life. Most of those who object to their use, however, also oppose all research on human embryos. Patient groups and scientists argue that it is immoral not to allow this research, because of its medical potential.”

For those who wish to follow the passage of the Bill, I recommend Epolitix.com.

David Aaronovitch, a columnist from the Times of London, was more outspoken on the issue of church interference with the Bill:

“Stop the sermon right there. My NUT/religion comparison is an even better fit than I realised. The legislation emanates from a ‘militantly atheist and secularist lobby’? Oh yes, that would be it. Haven’t you seen them on the streets and on your screens, all got up in their ‘God Is Dead, Christians Should be Deader’ atheist headbands and red robes, burning Bibles, insisting on the teaching of Dawkins and Hitchens in school RS lessons, smashing icons and creeping up behind bishops and lifting their cassocks?

“The cardinal, referring variously to the proposals as ‘hideous’ and ‘grotesque’, suggested that animal-human embryos were to be created ‘with the excuse’ that some diseases might be cured, and went on: ‘One might say that in our country we are about to have a public government endorsement of experiments of Frankenstein proportion.’

“One might say it, but it would it be — as the professor argued — untrue, though it is possible that Lord Winston had read more Mary Shelley than the cardinal, and that he therefore knew that no one was remotely suggesting or attempting to create a new form of life, as Baron Frankenstein was.

“The cardinal would have been closer in literary, though not factual, terms had he invoked The Island of Dr Moreau, upon which HG Wells located the eponymous lunatic’s attempt to create man-beasts.”

Whether you are, like Aaronovitch, of the view that the research must be advanced or, like Rundle, wary of what this all means to humanity, the fact is that we will, sooner rather than later, be confronted with this advance in scientific research.

Moreover, the relatively short time it has taken to develop, in scientific terms, should act as a warning that more and more frequently we are going to have to deal with such issues and select the way forward.

These are not abstracts drawn from the theatre or novels, but actual events that are taking place in laboratories around the world and being handed on to legislators for regulation — then it’s up to us to live with the consequences.

Hybrids, cybrids and chimeras are in all likelihood a part of your future, just as the unthinkable clones were a part of it a while back. Factor in, too, the likes of artificial intelligence and any number of other recipes currently being cooked up by humanity.

These scientific adventures, for want of a better term, aren’t going away — if anything, they are arriving in greater numbers and far more frequently. With each will come questions about science, ethics, morality, religion, law and all the other facets that make up membership of the human race.

The key, for me, is how we as individuals can even begin to respond to or cope with all these issues. For some, like Dave Barry, humour columnist from the Miami Herald, it’s to see the funny side of things.

For my part, I’m having another cigarette.