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The amendments I and others will lay down to reduce the upper limit at which abortion takes place from 24 weeks will be controversial and explosive. I had been concerned that this debate would overshadow other serious issues in the Bill, such as animal-human embryo hybrids, but then I hadn’t counted on Cardinal Keith O’Brien.
Cardinal O’Brien has not always been my favourite Cardinal; I have disagreed with him in the past. However, his typically forthright views have successfully grabbed the media’s attention at a time when we needed it most—immediately prior to the introduction of the Bill.
The Cardinal will say in his Easter Sunday sermon that the Bill “represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life.”He is absolutely right, but what is really monstrous is that the Bill ever saw the light of day in the first place.
It is a complete mystery to those who know that other methods of research are now available to develop treatments for those diseases which will supposedly benefit from cloning embryos. Take umbilical cord cell collection, which was recently highlighted by David Burrowes MP. The science has moved on in a way which is far less invasive and controversial.
Like most things which pop up in Parliament and appear to have no rhyme or reason to them, just follow the money and all becomes clear: the Bill is a win for the biotechnology industry and lobby groups. Let’s hope reason and belief triumph by third reading.
Nadine Dorries is a Conservative MP.
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