GORDON Brown says Labour MPs will have a free vote on three ‘controversial parts’ of his embryo research Bill, thus giving way to the Roman Catholic Church which termed the Bill as a go-ahead to create ‘Frankensteins’.
His proposal is designed to satisfy the Roman Catholics in the cabinet, ranging from Catholic secret society (Opus Dei) member, Ruth Kelly, to Defence Minister Des Browne, and Paul Murphy.
Brown is afraid that the Catholic reactionaries – who have been attracted to the Labour Party by its Blairite policies like bees to honey – will vote against the bill, and then resign from the cabinet, creating the conditions where the Tories will be able to force him to call a general election.
The Prime Minister’s idea is that if MPs back the three ‘controversial clauses’ of the bill, then all Labour MPs including the three cabinet members will vote ‘yes’ in the second and third readings of the whole bill.
However, the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain, which has now successfully intervened in British politics to force Brown’s concessions will only be encouraged by this success. It will instruct its adherents in the cabinet that they have a duty to vote with their conscience all the way, regardless of the consequences of the action.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is a key measure to bring existing laws on fertility treatment and embryo research into line with scientific advances.
The three areas where Brown said there would be free votes during the passage of the bill through the Commons are IVF research, saviour siblings and Admix embryos – the creation of inter-species embryos.
Speaking at the launch of Labour’s local election campaign, Brown said: ‘I do believe that in stem cell research we have the power in the future to treat and to cure some of the diseases that have afflicted mankind for centuries.’
Embryonic stem cell research ‘holds the key’ to advances in the treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer and heart disease, added Brown.
Brown is correct on these matters.
However he has now given the Church, that believes that the Pope not only has a direct line to god, but cannot err in matters of faith and morals, and whose attitude to science has not fundamentally changed since it wanted to burn Galileo at the stake for the mortal sin of saying that the earth went around the sun and not vice versa, the whip hand over scientific research that will save large numbers of lives.
The Church believes that humankind has been created in the image and likeness of god, apparently including deadly diseases in this likeness, so that it is a mortal sin to interfere with god’s creation, diseases and all.
Religion speaks in the words of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Edinburgh: ‘It is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which more comprehensively attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular bill.’
The Catholic MP Stephen Pound adds: ‘We seem to be moving into a sphere where we are actually taking on the role of the creation of life.’
The human position has been put by the Academy of Medical Sciences; it is ‘This research has massive potential to provide treatments for serious debilitating disorders ranging from developmental abnormalities in young children, to stroke, cancer, HIV/Aids, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, as well as better and safer treatment for infertile couples.’
In these days of acute capitalist crisis all the arms of reaction, from the Churches to the police and the army officer corps are trying to muscle their way into politics, through instructing a rapidly weakening parliamentary system what it must do.
Brown will give in, as a rule, to these forces. It is the working class that has the task of taking society forward to a higher level of development through a socialist revolution.
