Mr President, this debate is concerned with questions that are essential to humanity, such as what is life and how can we halt that ineluctable march towards death which is a characteristic of any existence? To pass on life to another, surely that is the profound meaning of evolution, the only moral law, moreover, which is indifferent to our concepts of morality? Life is undoubtedly a process. It is pointless to try to define the point at which life begins. Some people believe that it begins with the fusion of a spermatozoon with an ovum, yet each spermatozoon is alive, even though billions of them move around in vain. An ovum that is not fertilised ceases to live. The embryo, as it divides into two, then four, eight and sixteen and more cells, is the process of the living being. Until the fourth day, each cell is totipotent, and contains all the genetic information of a potential human being. Yet in order to become that human being, the embryo has to become implanted in a uterus and develop there for several months. However, an embryo is not just a type of material. Therefore, there have to be very good reasons for sacrificing it. Generally speaking, our societies accept abortion in order to preserve the physical or mental health of a mother. Cannot this idea of the lesser of two evils also be applied to supernumerary embryos for which potential parenting no longer exists? Is it not better to use those embryos for serious research, rather than destroying them? No one in this House defends reproductive cloning, but the possibilities opened up by therapeutic cloning deserve to be the subject of in-depth and properly integrated research. Our society accepts serious medical research carried out on foetuses, children, adults and corpses. Why should there be special rules for embryos alone? I would argue in favour of science, in favour of the right to know more. I argue in favour of public funding for this essential research. It would be irresponsible to leave it to the market sector alone. As with any research, there is no guarantee that it will be successful, but we must follow any serious leads. This applies to research into adult stem cells as well as to research into any of the 216 types of cells that make up the human body. Only a score of those have the power of pluripotency. Nor can we neglect research into embryonic stem cells. They are pluripotent by nature, and may be of assistance in regenerating all the types of tissue that go to make up the human body. I am convinced that genetic science will continue, with or without Europe, but I hope that Europe will not be left behind in this revolution. I respect those Members who have doubts, who see the risks rather than the hopes, but I do not accept that we should use the essential defence of human dignity as a sort of bludgeon to silence those who do not wish to reduce the whole of human dignity to a collection of cells. Where would that leave the dignity of those who suffer a thousand deaths before actually dying, or those who are sunk in the depths of disease or dementia? Can we really concentrate on the defence of burgeoning human life, when beings already alive are too often ignored, neglected and oppressed? Surely the search for new treatments for cruel diseases, for genetic predispositions or – even worse – predestinations, is the true defence of human dignity?

Political group: PSE