There are important points in Fr Robert Soler’s feature, ‘Is human embryo inviolable’ (Talking Point, November 2) which need some response. I am a former scientific delegate to the European Medicines Agency.
Are we a liberal democracy or a fundamentalist religious state? If the former, religion and secular state should be separate.
The State is responsible for man’s quality of existence. Religious belief centres around the concept of God and the mystery of the afterlife. Religion hasn’t got a monopoly on ethics. Quoting only Westminster parliament’s rejection of euthanasia, but failing to mention this parliament’s approval of the use of embryonal stems cells in regenerative medicine’s research, smacks of being economic with the truth.
This parliament also recently approved the creation of embryos from the genetic material of two mothers and one father as the only way to eliminate the probability of a child with incurable mitochondrial genetic disease.
The recent successful creation of totipotent stem cells from adult tissue has not ruled out the use of embryonal stems in medical research.
‘Dolly the sheep’, the first fully-formed animal to have been created from adult stem cells, actually turned out not to be quite normal, in that it experienced accelerated ageing and a very shortened life-span.
We obviously need to learn much more about stems cells – they are the next medical horizon. Swedish regenerative medical research recently announced a successful embryonal stem cell treatment for severe osteoporosis and claimed that embryonal stem cells had proved better than adult ones.
We need to keep in mind that medicine is essentially about relieving suffering before we get to the grave.
Religion should not make it harder for those genuinely striving to improve the condition of human beings.
Is the human embryo inviolable? Certainly not in Britain and Sweden where their parliaments have ruled that medical research can use embryonal stem cells in very controlled circumstances and in only suitably certified institutions.