Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-29-Speech-4-012"
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"en.20011129.1.4-012"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, encounters between politics and research are not always easy. Research itself is impossible to imagine without risks. At the present time, research on stem cells is just beginning, and we do not have time to wait for its results in ten or twelve years’ time. That was the whole point of the committee that we created last year.
Last week, when we voted on the Sixth Research Framework Programme, we voted in favour of a hierarchical classification of priorities and funding for genetics research. I agree with that restrained vote, which is in line with the opinion of the European Ethics Committee. The risk identified by today’s report is that medical research involves the desire to clone human beings. The report proposes that any attempt in that direction should be prohibited, and, above all, penalised. I welcome, in particular, the fact that we went further than simply declaring a prohibition, and I campaigned to make reproductive cloning criminal. However, must we infer from this that the therapeutic aspect of research into stem cells, whether adult or embryonic, should be condemned and rejected? Who is attributing to today’s scientists and researchers these projects that are bound to be diabolical? Is it the researchers themselves, or is it other people? We must avoid lumping together the two types of cloning, and here I disagree with the previous speaker, and perhaps we should regard the human race as being capable of producing guarantees and controls. I would remind you of the story of Frankenstein’s monster, which is one of the founding myths of our modern world. The monster asked his creator to give him a female companion, if you remember. Professor Frankenstein started to create the female equivalent of the monster. He started, but then he refused to create a fiancée for him. In doing so, he refused to give the monster the possibility of producing descendants, thereby condemning him to solitude and death. So that was the end of the story of Frankenstein’s monster. In this myth, which is one of the founding myths of our era, the human race showed its capacity to exercise control over itself.
Now, if we assume that there will be cloning for therapeutic purposes, and remember that this will involve stem cells, there are two human issues involved here, and I should like to conclude by reminding you of what they are, namely the status of the embryo and the use of women’s bodies. These are complicated issues, and there are some people who do not know the difference between cells and embryos, and who do not want to see any research carried out, not even on the supernumerary embryos resulting from medically assisted reproductive procedures, or on embryos resulting from abortions. Let us be quite clear about this, in expressing this view they are once again bringing up the question of whether abortion should be a criminal offence. That is politics, not research. Other people, including myself, point out that the production of stem cells requires the use of oocytes produced by women. We must be careful, and here I agree with other female speakers, not to exploit women for research purposes, and I very much regret the fact that, at a recent meeting of the coordinators, which unfortunately I did not attend, it was decided to do away with recital AJ, which was one of my amendments, without there having been any collective consultation. We have therefore re-tabled it.
That leads me, finally, to emphasise that there is concern on two fronts, firstly, concern on the part of those who want to re-launch the campaign against a woman’s right to abortion, and, secondly, concern on the part of those who would be involved for the purpose of commercialising women’s bodies. It is complicated and it is difficult. Having said that, there are some things in this report that I have set my heart on: the need to ensure that no payment is involved, the need for consent, and the requirement that there should be no discrimination, as regards employment and insurance, based on genetic tests."@en1
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