British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

SO, we will soon be crossing another moral Rubicon, if the Irish Council for Bioethics gets its way at any rate. This state-funded, state-appointed body has recommended that Ireland conduct stem cell research on human embryos. Such research will have the unfortunate side-effect of destroying said embryos.

What's on the other side of this moral Rubicon is as follows; if the State accepts the Council's recommendation then for the first time in our history we will permit one class of human beings to be destroyed for the sake of another class of human beings. And let it be noted that the Council for Bioethics does accept that human embryos are human beings. Unlike certain of the more obscurantist supporters of abortion, they do not regard human embryos as "blobs of jelly".

But in a way this makes the recommendation of the Council all the more repugnant. It accepts that the embryos to be experimented upon are human beings and it supports such experimentation all the same. It engages in a utilitarian moral calculus that regards one class of human beings as less worthy of life than another class of human beings.

We live in an age that prides itself on its egalitarianism, on its destruction of the legal distinctions we used to make between people based on class, race, sex and religion, and yet here we are making a radical distinction between humans in their earliest, most immature form, and humans lucky enough to have made it out of the womb alive, or else, as in this case, out of the laboratory alive.

The Council for Bioethics acknowledges that we must respect human life. It doesn't believe embryos should be created for the specific purpose of experimentation. It believes instead that only "spare" embryos left over following IVF should be used.

But its feeling of respect is exactly that, a feeling. It offers no guiding principle. For example, it can't tell us why we shouldn't create embryos specifically for experimentation. It can't tell us why we shouldn't experiment on human life further on in its development.

Having abandoned the principle that no human life should be subject to destructive experiments, period, it is unable to tell us where we should draw the line. It relies instead on its feelings, and what the wider community is willing to accept. And as we know from history, in given circumstances we are willing to tolerate a great deal of harm being doing to other human beings, especially if we think we'll benefit.

And this gets to the nub of the issue. A substantial number of scientists, allied to a substantial number of politicians, lawyers, academics and journalists have persuaded us that miracle cures will soon be before us as a result of embryo stem cell research and therefore it is acceptable that some should die so that others can live.

However, even if stem cell research can eventually cure diseases such as Parkinson's, these cures are many years away. They might never emerge. Embryo research in general has yielded no major cures for any disease after almost 20 years of trying.

In addition, stem cells can be derived from adults. Also, the more useful stem cells that can be derived from embryos will soon be available from other sources.

In other words, even based on the purely utilitarian moral calculus of the Council, there is very little justification for crossing this moral boundary. It is bad ethics and bad science.

A further question arises; why did the Government allow the Council to be stacked with people who are not fully pro-life in the sense of wanting to protect human life right from its earliest stages? There are numerous pro-life doctors, lawyers, scientists and philosophers it could have put on the Council.

There is, for example, the excellent Martin Clynes, Professor of Biotechnology at Dublin City University. He specialises in stem cell research but opposes embryo stem cell research.

The Government has a track record here, and it is a very bad one. The Assisted Human Reproduction Commission, for example, had 25 members. Only one was fully pro-life.

Currently, the composition of the Irish Medical Council is being considered by Mary Harney. Unless Fianna Fail steps in, it is likely to be stuffed full of pro-choicers.

The general problem with Fianna Fail is that on issues like this it falls asleep at the wheel, allowing 'liberals' to steal in and advance a pro-choice agenda many Fianna Failers would disagree with in practice. Fianna Fail needs to lift its game dramatically. It needs to pay attention to what is being done in the name of a government it dominates.

It should start by explicitly rejecting this morally indefensible recommendation from the Council for Bioethics. Fianna Fail has a chance to stand on the banks of this particular moral Rubicon and tell the Council that it will not cross. It needs to tell the Council it will not permit destructive experimentation on human life under any circumstances.

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- David Quinn