Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-07-Speech-4-100"
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"en.20000907.2.4-100"2
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".
There are some issues on which political differences should be set aside, not to make it appear as though a consensus could be reached but because they face everyone right across the board. And if there were to be only one such issue, without doubt it would be the defence and promotion of human life and dignity.
Over the past few decades, scientific research has made enormous strides and given hope to those suffering from illness or disabilities and to their families. Yet at the same time, some of this research and some of the scientists involved in it seem to have lost sight of what I would call a just and sound scale of values. It is therefore up to those responsible for the common good, especially in the moral and political field, to put right certain abuses. This applies to the British and American decisions to permit, respectively, cloning and the use of what are called unplanned ‘supernumerary’ embryos, in both cases for therapeutic purposes.
This raises a great many, closely related, problems. There are not two kinds of cloning, reproductive and therapeutic. We must continue to prohibit the creation of human embryos endowed with the same genetic make-up as another human being, for whatever purpose. Indeed, no human law that is not criminal can ever deny the fact that the embryo represents the beginning of life. So it is unjustifiable to destroy an embryo under any circumstances, even to cure someone who is ill, for how could anyone decently justify destroying one human being in order to cure another? Similarly, and more generally, life is an indivisible whole, it is present from the moment of conception and as such, is no longer subject to any human wishes. Does the recognition of life depend on whether it is planned?
Certainly, as responsible individuals, the potential parents have to give some thought, before conception, to having a child; but once conceived, that child exists and any manipulation of it, let alone planning its destruction for whatever reason, is an infringement of its fundamental rights and, in the worst case, a crime. It was a good thing that our Parliament took a clear stance on these abuses and thus, even if against the wishes of some of its Members, opted for life."@en1
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