Labour MP for Livingston Jim Devine has called on scientists, church leaders and MPs to meet face-to-face in an attempt to quell the row over a free vote on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, last week attacked the Government for endorsing “experiments of Frankenstein proportion” and demanded that the Government allow a free vote on the legislation.
The Bill is highly controversial because it allows for the creation of part-human part-animal embryos, or so-called “hybrid embryos”, which are banned in most countries around the world. The Bill also compromises a child’s right to a father by proposing that IVF providers no longer need to take into account a child’s need for a father when considering IVF applications.
On BBC Radio 4’s “Any Questions” on Friday, Health Minister Ben Bradshaw denounced Cardinal O’Brien’s attack as “rather intemperate and emotive” and said that the Government was “absolutely right to try to push this through to the potential benefit of many people in this country”.
"I think if it was about the things the cardinal referred to, creating babies for spare parts or raiding dead people's tissue then there would be justification for a free vote," Bradshaw told the BBC Radio 4's "Any Questions" on Friday.
"But it's not about those things. He was wrong in fact, and I think rather intemperate and emotive in the way that he criticised this legislation.
"This is about using pre-embryonic cells to do research that has the potential to ease the suffering of millions of people in this country. The Government has taken a view that this is a good thing.”
Whilst the Conservatives and Lib Dems have indicated they will allow their to vote according to their conscience, the Labour Party has told its members that they will have to either vote in favour or abstain completely.
The Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill said on Monday that the Bill was immoral and called on the Labour Party to allow its MPs a free vote.
