Text for the day is Jackie Ashley’s Guardian column. Jackie argues that those who object to aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill are acting from intrinsically “reactionary” motives: she warns that this Commons battle is a dry run for the general election. Modern Labour versus Luddite, anti-progressive Conservatives. Dave and his gang, she warns, are dangerous counter-revolutionaries pretending to be modernisers.
The Spectator has expressed deep reservations about this bill, both in its editorial column and John Patten’s recent article: we are especially exercised by the clause which would, in effect, abolish fatherhood from the lives of some children. I see the Government’s proposal as old-fashioned and our objection as authentically modern. Those who still cling to the outmoded, discredited vision of the Sixties are the real reactionaries in this argument: all the most recent research shows that children need fathers, or at least a father figure, if they are to have the best chance in life.
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