SPUC condemns the report of the Joint Committee into the government’s Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill

1 August 2007

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has condemned the report of the House of Lords/House of Commons Joint Committee on the Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill.

SPUC highlighted a number of the report's proposals for criticism:

Wide areas of embryo research to be exempt from licensing
Unprecedented new power for the regulatory authority
Much wider permission for inter-species embryo creation than in the draft bill
Broader grounds for creation of 'saviour sibling' embryos
Support for weakening of the law against so-called reproductive cloning.

The Joint Committee on the draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill has called for whole areas of research involving human embryos to be exempt from requiring licenses, stripping away even the vestige of oversight currently required in the exploitation of embryonic human beings.

The Committee's report acknowledges that the bill lacks even the foundations that provided a "partial ethical framework" (paragraph 44) for the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. The report suggests that this ethical foundation should be replaced (paragraph 56). But their suggestion is that the legislation itself should embody no ethical principle other than that the "regulator is king".

They call for the regulator (the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority - HFEA) to have power to exempt whole areas of research from the need for a license (paragraph 56). In these areas, scientists would have total freedom to create, manipulate and destroy any number of human embryos.

The Committee's report suggests that a joint committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords be set up to provide an ethical framework for bioethics issues. However, the report does not say what powers such a committee would have, other than commenting on proposed legislation (paragraph 48). It would seem a mere window-dressing exercise to set up such a committee when all the power would rest with the regulator.

The report proposes that the government should be able to override the regulator's decisions but only at the regulator's own invitation (paragraph 56: "The draft Bill should also provide a statutory power for the Secretary of State to make regulations .... only on the application of the regulator, to make provisions where necessary for the remit or authority of the regulator.")

Inter-species embryos

In addition, today's report form the Joint Committee says that if Parliament agrees to the creation of inter-species embryos, a wide powers for the creation and use of such human-animal hybrids and chimeras should be given. Once again, the regulator would have extensive powers.

At the same time the Committee proposes a new definition of "inter-species embryo" which means any cross-fertilised embryo (human-animal) which does not have a full complement of 23 human chromosomes is not regarded as an inter-species embryo at all. An embryo made by taking a human sperm, deactivating one chromosome - or part of a chromosome - and fertilising a ewe's or sow's ovum, is not an "inter-species embryo" as defined, and so would not come under the law.

Even though such an embryo might have the potential to develop human characteristics, scientists would be free to do almost anything with it - apart from placing it in a woman's womb (they could place it in an animal).

Furthermore, the committee recommends that the regulator (the HFEA) - not the courts or Parliament - should have the power to interpret the definition of inter-species. (Paragraph 178)

Human cloning

The report also supports the repeal of the law banning so-called reproductive cloning - that is, transfer of cloned embryos to the womb. Instead certain embryos will be categorised as "permitted" embryos (permitted to be transferred to the womb). At present, cloned embryos would not be "permitted".

To those eager to push the boundaries, this amounts to an invitation to pursue cloning, as the transfer of a cloned embryo to the womb could be permitted by a simple change in regulations, without a full debate in Parliament and the public scrutiny entailed.

On "saviour siblings" the report recommends that any "serious" condition, not just "life-threatening" ones, justifies the process of creating and destroying numerous IVF embryos in the hope of bringing one to birth that can provide cord blood or bone marrow to treat the older child.

In summary, the report is good news for ethically insensitive researchers, would-be cloners and other maverick scientists. It is bad news for IVF embryos and for the idea that law should have an ethical framework.

SPUC's submission to the committee is on the web as a PDF: