Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-06-Speech-3-236"
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"en.20000906.10.3-236"2
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"Mr President, it is a pity that none of the British delegates who support the government’s stance have taken the floor. It would have been interesting to hear their arguments too, because I am quite sure that they must have had a few thoughts on the matter . In Great Britain, it has been permissible, since 1990, to experiment on embryos up to fourteen days old. I believe this is the next logical step.
Why does Great Britain behave differently to the continent? That is certainly an interesting question. The difference obviously does not depend on which government is in power. It was a Conservative Government before, and now they have a Labour Government, and yet nothing has changed. Why is public opinion in Great Britain unlike that on the other side of the Channel? It would be entirely appropriate to discuss this kind of issue during this debate, because we have the privilege of being in the company of delegates from the four corners of the European Union. That was the first comment I wanted to make.
Secondly, I wanted to say how impressed I was with Mrs Bonino’s comments. It really struck a chord with me. I too would advocate that we should allow ourselves to be guided by the laity in matters of principle. The State is not religious, but it has a duty to respect religion. I too have respect for whether someone is Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish or whatever. But I also want my opinion to be respected. However this is only possible within a lay context. Claims of infallibility have already done Europe untold damage. We should endeavour to leave this behind. No one has a monopoly on ethics. People who see things differently are ethical too.
Incidentally, we have seen time and again how bans are watered down in practice. Everyone could cite examples of this. That is why I am firmly convinced – whatever we decide here – that in a cosmopolitan society performing research from a variety of perspectives, knowledge will out. At the end of the day, we will have no choice but to deal with this knowledge in a responsible manner by trying to circumscribe it. Mr Wurtz, a ban on any type of research may be called for, but it would be extraordinarily naïve to believe that this ban would be observed. In the final reckoning, we will have no choice but to lay down boundaries.
I feel as many other people do about this issue. The thought of embryos being meddled with and experimented on makes my hair stand on end. There are certainly boundaries. But practical experience has shown me that at the end of the day, it will probably not be possible to do a great deal more than simply circumscribe everything. There is no need for us to take action at present. We still have time. We need to think very carefully about how we are going to proceed in this matter. We have committees for this purpose, and sometimes reading a good book has its uses."@en1
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