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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, there have been some extremely powerful speeches on this amendment. I have been moved and swayed by people I thought that I would not agree with. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, divided her argument into two parts: the scientific arguments and the ethical arguments. With all due respect, the six scientific arguments she put forward can be met in a very straightforward way, but I shall not do so because I do not want to take the time of the House and it may be that the noble Lord, Lord Winston, may want to do so. I think that they can be met very easily. The heart of the matter is the ethical issue. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I have been involved in it, although for the sake of the record I should say that I was not the original bishop who approved this as chair of the ethics and law committee. I could see the noble Lord, Lord Patten, shaking his head, thinking that it might have been me, but it was not. It was actually a bishop with a much more traditional reputation than I have. However, I was chair of the ethics and law committee when this once again came before it. I supported it because I believe that when parents have children they have a mixture of motives. They are not having another child simply in order to aid a sick sibling; they will want another child anyway. All of us have a range of motives when we do things, and I do not think that this is simply a question of instrumentality. However, a new point has been stressed this evening, particularly by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester. It is that if we allow this for the use of umbilical cord or bone marrow, it could create a culture in which people might think it more normal to use the organs of children and therefore there will be unfair psychological pressure on that child, perhaps even an infringement of its human rights. The question left in my mind is whether we have enough safeguards in place to ensure that once that child has been born, there will not be unfair psychological pressure on it and its parents for its organs to be used. Therefore, I was also interested in the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that we need to ensure that that is dealt with by the judiciary, rather than the Human Tissue Authority.