Mitochondrial Replacement (Public Safety)

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley]

Yes, you did. Check Hansard. You said, “You have inflicted this disease on people.”

The debate has got very personal—it has gone into that realm—and people are trying to felon set, to emotionally blackmail, to emotionally charge the debate and to say that people are, to quote another Member, scaring us into opposing this. We must be abundantly clear that such emotional blackmail should be removed from the debate. There should be an honest debate and we should be allowed to discuss the ethics and to put on the table our views, including our moral views.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the complete lack of evidence on the possible outcomes as these children grow up and have their own children, with females passing on their genetic code to children, means that the technique should not be proceeded with at this stage?

[Ian Paisley]

Some of the pre-clinical tests were completed only in June. It is impossible even to read the detail of them, yet we have a mad rush from some people to proceed. I am not standing in the way of that, but saying that we should do so on the basis of solid, sure and grounded evidence, not emotional blackmail and emotionally charged arguments. The evidence therefore becomes critical. We should be allowed to consider it and we should allow the evidence to emerge post-pre-clinical testing and examination.

There have been two public consultations and I heard one Member dismissing them, saying that all the letters were the same. I can tell the House this: if the letters had all been the same and the majority view had been the other way, the same Member would not have been saying that tonight. He would be saying, “Oh look, the public are with us. The consultation’s there.” The Department of Health consultation is against this proposal and so is the consultation by the HFEA. The ComRes polling moved dramatically between February and August from a wafer-thin majority of 35% of people in favour of the proposal to an overwhelming majority of 55% or so opposed to it. That is a huge landslide.

Honesty should return into the centre of the debate and we should have a full, frank discussion. Let me be clear about my position, as people will ask about the ethical position. I come from a moral stance. I share the psalmist’s view that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. We should stand in awe of that and praise the great creator for it, but that should not preclude us from having a proper debate. Other Members have mentioned colleagues or constituents who have had children brought in front of them and I, too, have a constituent who wheeled a little child in front of me. Her words ring in my ears today. Despite all the hurt, all the heartache and all the pressure, tears and anguish for that family, the words of the mother were very clear, “Ian, I would not change this for one moment.”