Home > The Magazine > Features

Saturday 22 November 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

The EU and stem cell research

Why Europe may soon split along religious lines

Stephen Pollard

Wednesday, 1st August 2007

Stephen Pollard says that if embryonic stem cell research is banned in some parts of Europe — as it might be under the new EU treaty — old hostilities will resurface

what they like, but such legislation will be irrelevant when the medical breakthroughs have been made elsewhere. Because whatever the moral rights and wrongs, such bans will lead to a new social divide. We know exactly what will happen when a government refuses to allow medical interventions because of ethical or religious concerns; look at Ireland when abortion was illegal. With these latest breakthroughs, those who can afford to leave their country to be treated abroad will simply buy a return plane ticket.

Bans, when people are free to travel to a country where a treatment is legal, have only one effect: they give freedom to choose to the wealthy and deny it to everyone else. Take sex selection of children which is, in most cases, illegal across the EU. The latest technology means that small amounts of foetal DNA can be examined in a mother’s blood just six weeks into pregnancy. A Y-chromosome reading means that the foetus is male. The British company DNA Worldwide is now marketing a mail-order test, with an answer guaranteed within a fortnight — well within the abortion framework. In the modern world, bans on such services are whistling in the wind.

There is no easy solution. An EU-wide policy would be undemocratic and as equally unworkable as individual member state bans.

Treatments derived from embryonic stem cell research are coming, imminently, and they will bring untold relief to those whom they can benefit. Banning them may salve consciences but the impact of such restrictions will be straightforward: to reintroduce across Europe a division based on religion. In Catholic and conservative Christian countries which choose to ban, new advances will be available only to the wealthy. Elsewhere, they will be available on the basis of need. The further complication of the free movement of labour, and moves to allow patients to elect to be treated wherever in the EU they wish if they are denied treatment in their own countries, only adds to the complications.

It may be buried in a footnote to the treaty, but the fallout from new medical technology is going to be on the front page before long.

Stephen Pollard is president of the Centre for the New Europe in Brussels.

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

More articles from: Stephen Pollard | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comment

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Thank goodness we can have a run on the pound when we need one

Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer looks ahead to next week’s Pre-Budget Report and reflects on George Osborne’s contentious remarks about the devaluation of sterling. It looks like Gordon Brown is getting away with his borrowing binge — leaving the Tories isolated

I loved Oliver Stone’s Bush film — and I know why the critics hated it

Rod Liddle

The movie W. did not provide the crude anti-Bush agitprop that the reviewers craved, says Rod Liddle. This was precisely its strength: we need to get inside the minds even of those we most deplore

The great Tory tax and spend battle: seconds out...

Fraser Nelson and Daniel Finkelstein

In the wake of Cameron’s decision to drop his pledge to match Labour spending, Fraser Nelson and Daniel Fin kelstein of the Times trade rhetorical blows over the issue that is gripping and troubling the Conservative party as it adjusts to the transformed economic context

Where is our inspiration when we most need it?

Bryan Forbes

Bryan Forbes remembers listening to Churchill as a 14-year-old evacuee and now looks with envy at Obama’s capacity to galvanise hope. Where are his UK counterparts?

For a bit of perspective, try thinking Jurassic

Christopher Lloyd

The first takeaways originated about 150 million years ago, says Christopher Lloyd; global travel is pretty ancient, too. And as for democracy...

My real focus group scorned climate change

James Delingpole

James Delingpole asks second world war re-enactors what they think of the green agenda: the answer is very different to the consensus around the pine tables of metropolitan London

The modern Tory hero should be Jefferson

Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell

Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell unveil their plan for radical reform to decentralise power, make voting count and challenge apparats from Brussels to town halls

Poles are the fall guys of the immigration debate

Dennis Sewell

The taboo on discussing migration has only been partly lifted, says Dennis Sewell. We pretend that all migrants are the same, whereas the statistics reveal some uncomfortable truths

In Cyprus, warm words conceal dark intentions

John Torode

Don’t be misled by the notional amicability between North and South, says John Torode. Many Cypriots believe that Turkey is determined to annex the North, with our tacit approval