Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-29-Speech-4-019"
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"en.20011129.1.4-019"2
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"Mr President, after about a year of intensive investigation into human genetics and its effects on medicine, after countless hearings and conversations during on the spot fact-finding visits, I now have less hope than when I started. I am thoroughly disappointed. The Temporary Committee on Human Genetics and Other New Technologies in Modern Medicine did not reach the destination I expected. The committee’s report will not create the basis for coherent legislation on biotechnology in the Member States of the European Union that many, like myself, were looking for. Instead, the chaos of opinions voiced in the amendments in plenum looks like leaving it in shreds. In the end those shreds will no longer fit together properly. I therefore ask you, honourable Members, at least to allow us to prevent the worst.
Let us vote only for what takes balanced account of the social, economic and legal aspects and not steamroller through narrow ethical boundaries. The European Parliament must not fail here. We must set standards here. In a representative democracy, setting standards is the duty of the directly elected parliament and is not left to governments, let alone to forces that are not primarily dedicated to the common good. At consultations last weekend in Nantes, the German and French governments pointed the way for a common position on the economic and ethical questions raised by biotechnology.
To quote from a German federal government document: "Such agreement between Germany and France could be the prelude to broader agreement at European level.” The European Parliament can shorten the way and set out the markers today. The Committee on Human Genetics, as we call it for short, has carefully compiled the necessary information and the spectrum of appraisals. Now, Parliament as a whole, must show science, medicine and business in the Union’s Member States the way forward for the biotechnological revolution. But we must not fall into the trap of a wrong kind of belief in progress. Not every step forward taken by human beings is, at the same time, also progress for humanity.
We must not submit to ideologies or dogmas either, however, let alone seek to establish new ones. Many feel so uncertain in the ethical realm that they would rather forget it. But there is a lot of clarity here. Sometimes we simply do not see it. For example, a fertilised human egg cell can only become a human being and nothing else. So human dignity must be protected from the time the male sperm is united with the female egg. This absolutely fundamental right has been put in writing again and again, most recently at the start of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. All we have to do is stick to it.
Given that, we cannot allow cloning, for whatever purpose, neither reproductive nor therapeutic. It cannot be allowed. Given that, too, we cannot allow embryos to be used, let alone created, for research. The medical ethos of helping and healing at least stands in the way of deliberate interventions in the human germ line, but a look at the consequences, which are catastrophic in every respect, does so too.
I will leave the matter there. When it comes to the vote at midday today, we shall have to respect a number of other limits. But today we must also express our support for progress in the biological sciences. With the right support, they may perhaps bring us closer to fulfilling the dream of conquering disease and suffering, and we should give much greater support than we have hitherto to the alternatives in the realm of adult stem cells, for example. I think that is really where the future lies."@en1
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