UK: Catholic church accused of ‘lying’ over controversial Embryo Bill
But fertility expert Lord Winston, a Labour peer, has told the Daily Telegraph: “His statements are lying. They are misleading and I’m afraid that when the Church, for good motives, tells untruths, it brings discredit upon itself.”
Today a leading Church of England bishop added his voice to those who describe the proposals as immoral . . .
The growing row comes as Gordon Brown is facing an unprecedented challenge to his authority over plans for embryo research with as many as 12 ministers ready to quit if ordered to back the bill.
The Prime Minister is determined to pass the legislation - which will also abolish the need for IVF clinics to consider a child’s need for a father and allow the creation of “saviour siblings” to cure sick brothers and sisters.
Gordon Brown has also come under attack from senior members of the Catholic Church with Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien said the bill would allow “grotesque procedures” which would “attack the sanctity and dignity of human life”.
One Comment
I really hope Lord Winston will be made to substantiate this allegation. Having studied this Bill and the various “consultations” and Parliamentary Committees which have “informed” its evolution and also followed its progress through the Lords I see nothing false in what Cardinal O’Brien has said. The Bill must be seen in its wider context. It is but a stage in a larger process and seen that way it is dire.
On the other hand, consider the statement by the Government Health Minister Ben Bradshaw on Radio Four’s “Any Questions” last Friday:
“If it was about the things the Cardinal referred to, creating babies for spare parts or raiding dead people’s tissue, then there would be justification for a free vote. But it’s not about those things. He was wrong in fact, and I think rather intemperate and emotive in the way that he criticised this legislation.”
But actually it is Mr Bradshaw who is “wrong in fact”. The Bill does permit the selection of an embryo as a tissue match for an ailing sibling with the purpose of being brought to term and used to provide tissue up to and including part organs. And Lord Walton of Detchant put down an amendment to permit the use of banked material without explicit consent where not obtainable, including from dead donors, to create cloned embryos which would then be raided and destroyed for their stem cells. Although the Government originally opposed this I understand that it has now indicated that it might support such an amendment in the Commons (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3291921.ece).
So what are the rules of this game? Those supporting the Bill may lie with impunity? Those opposed tell the truth but may be freely accused of lying without the accusers being required to justify such accusation?