Votes of Conscience

Today and tomorrow the British government will vote in the House of Commons on the sections of the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill that they have been granted a 'FREE VOTE' on. This means that these sections may be voted on according to their consciences. Unfortunately all is not quite as free as it might at first appear, for the final stages of the Bill are to be voted on with a Three-Line-Whip, which means that matters of conscience don't come into the issue!

The sectors that will be voted on over these two days involve:

1. The question of so-called Saviour Siblings
2. The need for a father
3. Abortion Termination Period
4. Human-Animal hybrids

The government is, I believe, being led like a lamb to the slaughter by the Pharmaceutical Industry giants, for who the whole subject of Human-Animal hybrids in particular is an enormous golden egg just waiting to be cracked open in order to enjoy the profits. Billions of pounds/dollars are at stake, so it's little wonder that the government is going along with all of this.

Of course, in considering the need for a father in a relationship few agencies have pointed out that the need for a mother is also questioned. In reality, if a same-sex couple, whether homosexuals or lesbians, wish to have a child then if this Bill is passed it will give both of the couple the rights to be legally identified as parents. This means that a child born of a surrogate mother and using the sperm of a homosexual may be legally identified to have no mother but two fathers. Likewise, the child that is born to a lesbian using donated sperm can be legally identified as having two mothers but no father.

As a Christian, I find this whole situation an abomination, and something which totally flies in the face of God and His holy laws. Of course it may well be argued that the whole thing is a matter of semantics, but I state here and now that it takes a man and a woman to produce a child, the couple concerned being properly identified as a MOTHER and a FATHER. The issue of whether or not they remain together as a couple for any period of time is irrelevant. What is relevant is that if the Law insists on defining a child's parents as being two people of the same sex then the LAW IS AN ASS! Perhaps it's time for those responsible to go back to their educational basics and enrol themselves anew in the biology class to study human biology, and in particular, procreation.

The current termination period for abortion is 24 weeks, despite the fact that at that stage we are not talking of some minute lifeless blob but of a formed foetus. Human life commences with the fertilisation of an egg. To terminate at any period, unless it is a matter of endangering life to allow the embryo to progress, is murder, whether legal or not.

Each one of these issues is emotive of course, but I am most concerned that the majority of people are not privy to a balanced view on the subjects involved, in addition to which some of the issues are deliberately fudged around by highlighting some of the more contentious statements that are about. I hope that Members of Parliament will have the courage not only to use their votes wisely in the voting over these two days, but also to vote truthfully according to their conscience regardless of the Three-Line-Whip in the final stages of the Bill.

The arguments that the government are putting about today are based upon subjects which touch the lives of the masses of ill-informed, namely research for cures into cancer, Parkinson's, and so on. The reality is, however, that in the EIGHTEEN YEARS that research has already existed not one cure can be attributed to it, so all of this talk is nothing short of a smoke-screen.

If --- or perhaps I should say, in the absence of true FREE VOTING --- when this Bill is passed we will have not made a giant leap forward but taken a massive step backwards. No doubt there will be many in the country --- including some politicians --- who will become wealthy as a result of this heinous Bill, but that does not make it any the more right.

I urge you, therefore, to make certain that you really understand what the various aspects of this Bill are about, and then make your voice heard according to your own conscience. It may be that you will decide in favour of course, but as long as that is what your conscience prompts you to do after investigating all of the issues then you cannot be faulted. As for me, there is absolutely nothing which will square the different aspects of this Bill with my conscience, and so I will continue to stand against it on the basis that it flies in the face of Scripture and therefore of God, and as a believer in the Truth, I cannot in all conscience support any aspect of it.