Legislative background

Master, Fellows and Guests -

I am most grateful to you for your kind invitation to me to address this Conversazione on issues to address this Conversazione on issues relating to stem cell research, as this is a topic in which I have been interested for some years, as I shall explain. Indeed, when I became a life peer in 1989, my baptism of fire in the House of Lords was my involvement in debates through all the stages of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, as it then was. The provisions of that Bill, designed to allow experiments under licence upon the human embryo up to 14 days after fertilisation, were fiercely opposed by members of the ProLife movement who were predominantly, if not exclusively, members of the Roman Catholic Church. I pointed out in debate that until the middle of the 19th century, the teaching of that great Catholic theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, was that life did not begin until the fetus was capable of independent existence outside the womb. However, in 1869, Pope Pius IX in the constitution Apostolicae Sedis, decreed that life began at the moment that the human ovum was fertilised by sperm. It followed, according to the arguments deployed by supporters of that view, that experiments on even a very early embryo were tantamount to those being performed without consent upon a human individual, and that if embryos were subsequently destroyed or allowed to degenerate, then this was regarded by them as being tantamount to killing a human being.

There were many, like myself, who took the view that an early collection of cells, which some preferred to call the pre-embryo, could not be regarded as a human being, and indeed we noted the view expressed by a senior and distinguished Australian Roman Catholic theologian, the Reverend Professor Norman Ford, who in his book entitled "When Did I Begin?" expressed the view that individuation of the human embryo did not take place until the appearance of the primitive streak, a linear arrangement of cells representing the earliest evidence of a nervous system, at about the fourteenth day after fertilisation. This was certainly a view shared by myself and many others who spoke in the debate. In the end, the Bill was passed by a large majority in both Houses of Parliament and became an Act.

The provisions of that Act allowed experiments under licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority upon human embryos up to 14 days after fertilisation, first in order to improve the treatment of infertility and secondly in order to prevent the birth of individuals suffering from serious disabling conditions or potentially fatal disease. In other words, licences could be awarded for work on pre-implantation diagnosis of diseases such as, for example, cystic fibrosis or Duchenne muscular dystrophy, based upon embryo or blastocyst biopsy carried out in order to determine whether or not the gene responsible for the condition was present. If not, then the embryo could be implanted, allowing carriers of the genes responsible for these serious diseases to have normal children. If, of course, the gene was found to be present in the biopsy material, then the embryo would be allowed to degenerate and would not be implanted. For those who claimed, as mentioned above, that such a mechanism was tantamount to killing, it was important to point out, as I did in the debate, that in the course of normal human conception four or five ova are often released into the uterus at the time of ovulation and several may well be fertilised by the human sperm. As the early embryo develops into a blastocyst at around the fourth or fifth day, several blastocysts are therefore floating free in the uterus before one (or occasionally two), at about the fifth or sixth day, implants in the uterine wall and ultimately mature (s) into a fetus. All the remainder of the blastocysts are then shed, so that millions of fertilised ova are flushed down the toilet regularly.

The reason why the 2001 regulations introduced in both Houses of Parliament to amend the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act were needed was because, specifically, work on human embryos for the treatment of disease, as distinct from prevention, would not without such regulations become legal. Had the potential benefits of work on stem cells been known at the time of the 1990 Act, I have little doubt that such provisions would have been included in that Act. The 2001 regulations, when introduced into the House of Commons, were passed by a substantial majority. When, however, these regulations came to the House of Lords, an amendment was tabled by Lord Alton of Liverpool, a vigorous supporter of the ProLife movement. I should mention here that under parliamentary procedure, regulations cannot be amended; they can either be accepted or rejected. However, the Alton amendment did not seek to change the regulations but proposed that their acceptance be deferred until a Select Committee of the House had had an opportunity of considering all of the implications. Had that amendment been passed, then there is no doubt, that the regulations would have been deferred and potentially important and exciting research could well have been set back by one or more years. I there-fore tabled a second amendment proposing that the House accept the regulations, but that it should establish a Select Committee following their acceptance in order to consider their implement-ation. After a lengthy debate until the early hours of the morning, the Alton amendment was pressed to a vote and was lost, and my amendment was carried.

The legal position, therefore, is that a Select Committee under the chairmanship of the Rt. Revd. The Lord Bishop of Oxford is now studying the implications of those regulations and will make recommendations about their implementation and regulation by the end of 2001. In the mean-time, however, scientists wishing to work on stem cell research are in a position to formulate proposals and to put these before the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.