News, 26 January 2000

Mrs Ann Winterton, sponsor of the Medical Treatment (Prevention of Euthanasia) Bill, has signed the parliamentary motion which alerts the British government to the dangers of the morning-after pill. This brings the number of supporters of the amendment to 11. 14 MPs have signed an amendment which claims that such pills do not cause abortions and are safe. [977, Notices of motions 32, House of Commons, 25 January, 2000] Mrs Winterton's bill is to be debated on Friday.


The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has warned that women who have in vitro fertilisation (IVF) using frozen eggs have a poor chance of conceiving. The practice, which the HFEA has just started to allow in Britain, has been permitted in the United States and Italy since the 1980s. It is claimed that (unfertilised) eggs are at greater risk from the freezing and thawing process than (fertilised) embryos. Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics has said that IVF had been offered to solve infertility but the wish to postpone childbearing (one of the benefits described by the media) was not an infertility-problem. The LIFE organisation has warned of a potential trade in human eggs. [The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, 26 January, 2000]


Twin babies born to a surrogate mother in California, and who have a British male homosexual couple named as their parents on their birth-certificate, have been given leave to stay in the United Kingdom. British law recognises the children's mother and her husband as their parents. Barrie Drewett and Tony Barlow spent 200,000 pounds on having the children conceived using sperm from one of them. [Metro, 26 January, 2000]


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