Telegraph: Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill: whatever happened to the ‘yuk’ factor?

[...] The British believe in secular science but have ceased to have faith in their religious instincts. In 1990 it was not just the hereditary peers who found the idea of animal-human hybrids simply too disgusting to be tolerated. It was the common response, the “yuk” factor as a test of the limits of scientific experimentation. The House of Commons was at one with the House of Lords. Twenty years later the scientists have almost won – they won in the Lords and are quite likely to win in the Commons. We are, I think, a worse country for the change of view.

The Prime Minister and Chief Whip may have affected this mood, certainly they have thrown the House of Commons and the Labour Party into confusion. They can rescue themselves only by an undignified climbdown. They threatened to impose a three-line whip in support of the Bill which could have meant the possible resignation of ten ministers, three of them from the Cabinet. Gordon Brown has challenged the Roman Catholic Church, always a high-risk policy. He is now faced by the criticisms of two cardinals and a Welsh archbishop. He ought to have realised that the Roman Catholic community, recently reinforced by half a million Polish immigrants, takes its religion from its bishops and not from its ministers. Read more
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