The dust settles.....

So onwards and forwards to "saviour siblings", "hybrid" embryos and the rest. The forces of reaction and obscurantism routed and driven from the field. And I bet you're all expecting cures for everything from Alzheimer's to fragile-X syndrome if not next week then a couple of years from now. Don't get me wrong. Preventing or curing Alzheimer's, motor neurone disease, and a whole host of other neurological disorders would be great news indeed. And the research that can now go forward may play a role in such advances. But at a price. That price is that human life becomes just a little bit more like a tool or a commodity. And while many commodity prices are currently soaring, the price of this commodity is gently heading south. We're a little bit less than what we were, or are or should be.

Was there an alternative? Probably. A lot of research resources will now be ploughed into some of the new avenues that will now open up. But there were less costly avenues that might have reaped the same dividends. Work on adult stem cells has quietly been delivering real insights and possible therapeutic clues. Work using cells from cord blood has also shown promise. Both of these may now be hampered because resources will now be directed in new ways.

What the debate illustrated for me was that politicians and others seem peculiarly unwilling to stand up to scientists. As I scientist I can speak with authority on what can be done. I can speculate in an educated way about what it might lead to. I suppose in my own area of expertise it's fair enough to expect that I should be heard with a degree of respect. But when it comes to the trickier question not of what can be done, but what should be done, my opinions should carry no more weight than yours simply because I'm a scientist. "Is" should not lightly be simply turned into "ought" with no further comment. And it seemed to me there's been a lot of that going on over the last week.

What of the real issue....

Today, there has been a reasoned and reasonable debate in Parliament about where to put the legal time limit for performing an abortion in the UK. Currently it's 24 weeks. It may be reduced. But this debate misses what for all of us should be really disturbing statistic: the number of abortions in England and Wales in 2006 was 193,700 (an increase on 2005). That's an average of 3725 per week, 532 per day, 22 per hour, about one every 22 second, of every day, of every month through the year. About 90% were carried out by the 13th week of gestation. Of the 193,700, only 2,000(1%) were under ground E, because there was a risk that the child would be born handicapped. One wonders at the reason for the other 191,700. The numbers are publicly available on the Department of Health website. But the numbers, the facts don't really help, except to alert us to an unfolding disaster that speaks volumes about the kind of society we've become.

No one with any sense would deny that underlying these figures are tens of thousands of individual tragedies for the women involved. While some perhaps undertake this course seeing it as no more than another form of contraception, I'm prepared to believe that many do so after careful thought, deliberation and no doubt for some, for many, anguish. All of this misses the point. We're not talking about the disposal of fridges or dishwashers. Or a choice between a car and a holiday. We're talking about the systematic ending of life (actual or potential) on a massive scale. And, as almost a byproduct the risk of lasting damage to the woman concerned. While for many there is perhaps relief and even escape, how many thousands remain scared and damaged? I ask because I don't know. And as with so many issues around abortion, answers beyond the bare numbers are hard to disentangle from polemic.

There can be no flip answer. Surely the current situation can't simply be ignored. Banning abortion wont end it, just hide it. Simply suddenly restricting it at the point of demand is likely to be as damaging at the current situation. In any case, having opened the box, there can be no neat, instant way of shutting it again. If there is to be a right to choose, perhaps we should begin by enabling a real choice. Proper options for the potential mother, a proper taking of responsibility for the potential children by the rest of us. There's a lot of responsibility being ducked in current circumstances, on all sides. While on the one hand this is an intensly personal situation, given the scale of what is going on it has a public dimension.

But "right to life" vs "right to choose" has delivered us into, rather than delivered us from, a mess. No answers, just more questions - at least from me.

Dispatch on Dispatches - "In God's Name"


Shock, horror... "Hard-line Christian activists are now mobilising believers in an attempt to make an impact on society nationally." Apart from the "Hard-line" bit, which is a touch pejorative, isn't this a good thing in a democracy? Are Christians (hard-line or any line) not allowed to lobby or protest? Are they not supposed to be media savvy (although not many of those featured were), organised, educated, committed? If the beliefs encountered in the programme are only held by the lunatic fringe, then they are unlikely to achieve any political traction, given all the other views being lobbied for which are media savvy, organised and committed. If they are evidence-based, cogent and in particular if they speak to a deeper truth, then they may succeed. Indeed, ultimately they will be vindicated, even if not in the here and now. It seems to me the confident non-believer has nothing to fear from this. However, there appear to be more than a few non-believers who, never having really worked out what they don't believe and why they don't believe it, react with fear and intolerance, stirred up by caricatures of Biblical Christianity, rather than the real thing. The answer to that is surely to investigate the case the Christians put.


Interestingly the creation/evolution issue was used, in an attempt (I think) to portray directly one particular faith school, and by association all faith schools, as teaching "science" seriously out of step with the mainstream. The claim (and it seemed to be a fair one) was that "creation science" was being taught as scientific fact. Just for the record, I believe in God the creator of the heavens and the earth. I'm hazy on the exact mechanism, because He hasn't explained it in those terms in His Word. I'm not entirely sure that my rather feeble mind is capable of understanding in terms of mechanism how a God who is Spirit, calls a universe which is material into being out of nothing. I do understand that He did it, and that He had a particular purpose in mind in doing it. It is unfortunate if one particular institution teaches as fact that the Earth is only about 6000 years old. That is a possible interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis, but not a necessary one. And it conflicts with a lot of sound evidence from the scientific realm. That evidence, just like Scripture, has to be interpreted, but I find it compelling. However, it is not clear to me that the particular school portrayed is typical. And presumably the parents who send their children to that particular school know what is being taught, and along with the rest of what the school does, approve. Are they not to have the right to send their kids to such schools? I wouldn't, but then that's me. Who is to decide? The media? Let's hope not. Atheists? But they are hardly objective? The State? But hang on, the State has legislated to allow these schools to operate. They are State inspected, and have to meet agreed standards - which presumably they do.


That all said, this was a rather sophisticated and subtle hatchet job. A partial presentation from a particular standpoint (broadly a secularist one). How could it be otherwise. The thinking viewer will actually have seen and heard positively provocative stuff, as well as a bit of caricature. If it scares a few atheists, humanists or secularists into political activism, fair enough. But perhaps it might encourage more Chrsitians to take seriously our responsibility to be prayerful, gracious, Biblical, active citizens.