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Gay Charity Supports Embryology Bill

The UK gay Humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust has added its voice to the hundreds of charities that are supporting the government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

Over the Easter weekend the leader of Scotland's Roman Catholics attacked the Prime Minister and made lurid claims that the new legislation "comprehensively attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular bill."

The bill will give same-sex couples recognition as legal parents of children conceived through the use of donated sperm, eggs or embryos.

The Pink Triangle Trust also supports scientist and fertility expert Professor Lord Robert Winston’s description of the Catholic Church’s statement on this as “lying” and “misleading”.

"I'm afraid that when the Church, for good motives, tells untruths, it brings discredit upon itself," Lord Winston said.

“Highly reputable organisations like the Medical Research Council and the Welcome Trust have said that this research has massive potential to provide treatments for serious debilitating disorders ranging from developmental abnormalities in young children, to stroke, cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, as well as better and safer treatment for infertile couples," said the PTT’s secretary George Broadhead.

"Yet the Roman Catholic Church vehemently opposes it. What is it about this Church that it seems to oppose automatically advances in biological science that can promote human happiness and welfare?" he added.

The leader of the opposition David Cameron has also stressed that the arguments may act as a barrier to the legislation being debated "calmly and reasonably" by MPs.

"My own view, and I think [that of] many people in the Conservative Party, is we need to update the legislation," he said on ITV's breakfast programme GMTV.

"This sort of research is important. We all want to see diseases reduced and problems that children have, birth defects, dealt with."

Cameron has also accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of "dither and delay" over the issue of a free vote, mocking Labour's position on the Bill as a "mess."

In a letter, around 200 charities have already written a joint letter to all MPs saying the bill will "allow new avenues of scientific inquiry to be pursued which could greatly increase our understanding of serious medical conditions affecting millions of people throughout the UK."

“When you consider the enormous difference that contraception has made to the lives of women previously weighed down by multiple births and sexual diseases and the availability of abortion that gives women control over their lives,” said Pink Triangle's George Broadhead, “it is monstrous that these life-enhancing measures are opposed in a civilised society.”

“We warmly welcome that part of the Bill that will enable homosexual couples who conceive through donated sperm, eggs or embryos to register as parents on a birth certificate, and the recognition of two-mother families," he added.

Other church leaders have also voiced their opposition to the bill. "I refute any suggestion that the Catholic bishops have been lying about this Bill or misleading people as to its contents and import," the Archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith, told the BBC.

"Contrary to what a number of scientists have claimed, this Bill does in fact allow the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos for research," he added.

Author: Joanne Oatts

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