The controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill passed its second reading last week and today MPs will begin debating on the provision for the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos.

Christian Today spoke to the head of the Christian Medical Fellowship, Dr Peter Saunders, to find out what he thinks of the Bill.

CT: What aspects of the Bill are you most concerned about?

PS: The four key issues are the ones for which conscience votes are being granted: animal-human hybrids for research, saviour siblings and particularly the extension from life threatening to serious disease, the role of the father for IVF children, and abortion. Abortion isn't on the face of the Bill but the Bill opens up the abortion element for amendment.

There are two subsidiary campaigns that CMF are involved with. The Alive and Kicking campaign (www.aliveandkickingcampaign.org)
on abortion brings together 12 Christian and life groups with the aim of halving the abortion rate and stopping liberalisation of the abortion laws, getting restrictive amendments, and to bring down the upper limit for abortion for normal babies, the upper limit for abortions from disabled babies from birth to 24 weeks, and to bring in a charter of informed consent for women.

We believe the third one of those is most important in terms of bringing the abortion rate down. Many women choose abortion because they feel they don't have a choice. Our aim would be to bring in a charter of informed consent, with proper counselling, a cooling off period and the time, space, information and support to be able to make a properly informed decision.

We know from experience that that will have a huge impact on bringing down the abortion rate. The upper limit is more about saving the most saveable group of babies - those between 20 and 24 weeks. And symbolically it's incredibly important. Sadly, in terms of making big inroads into the 200,000 abortions a year, it's not going to be hugely significant.

The other campaign we are involved in is the 20 Weeks campaign (www.the20weekscampaign.org) launched earlier this month by Nadine Dorries MP. Alive and Kicking's petition has 25,000 signatures already and will be presented to Parliament on Tuesday 20 May. The 20 Weeks campaign has a postcard and e-postcard campaign and a petition with about 6,000 signatures so far, which is also due to be presented on Tuesday.

CT: How will you work with MPs as they go over this Bill?

PS: In terms of amendments, it's all up to the MPs and we are involved in supporting them in placing amendments on 19 and 20 May. Their decision is that they want to focus entirely on restrictive amendments and go as far as they possibly can at this point.

In respect to saviour siblings, we are looking for a complete ban. With the animal hybrids, again we want a complete ban. With respect to the role of the father we want to reinstitute recognition of the need for the father.

CT: Scientists say that the hybrid embryos are just 0.1 per cent animal, so it's almost completely human. Are opponents just making a mountain out of a mole hill?

PS: Well, it's not just 0.1 per cent. That's propaganda from the other side. If you measured the DNA by weight, even in a hybrid embryo, the DNA is about 50% by weight initially and then it gradually evens out over time. But the embryo starts out far more animal than human because of the amount of mitochondrial DNA and the size of the cytoplasm with respect to the nucleus.

I think there are probably four main ethical objections to animal-human hybrids. The first one is that, like our objection to embryo research in general, this is destructive research on embryos. We are using embryos as a means to an end, producing them in a laboratory, using them for stem cells and then destroying them in the process.

I know some Christians don't consider that the embryo is a human being with potential. They think of it as more of a potential human being. My own view is that human life begins at fertilisation, that these are human lives, they are vulnerable, they are worthy of the utmost respect and they are protected under law, although I know that was all eroded with the Abortion Act and Human Fertilisation Embryology Act. I would like to go back but I'm recognising that isn't possible.

There is also the issue of crossing species, that we are crossing a rubicon and creating a being that is part animal and part human. This has never been done before.

The opposition will argue that since 1990 they have the 'hamster tests', whereby the fertilised human eggs and hamster sperm were used to test contraceptives. But they were never allowed to go beyond penetration. Fertilisation doesn't even take place.

This is an embryo that is going to last for 14 days. And we know that nothing ever created in a laboratory every stays there. This is portacabin technology that you can do unobserved and is impossible to police.

The third objection is that we think it is unnecessary and that the public has been lied to. Those are strong words, but I think the public has been misinformed and lied to about the therapeutic potential of these entities.

There are four kinds of embryo that the Act allows - true hybrids or human eggs with animal sperm or vice versa, the chimeras, which are produced by mixing embryonic stem cells from an animal into a human embryo, and there are transgenic embryos. There is no research application at all that anyone has come up with, so the question is why are we doing them at all?

The only one of the four with any potential application is the cybrid - the so-called 99% one. But the thing about the cybrid embryo is that it is doubly abnormal. It is a mixture of two species and is produced by cloning technology, not by fertilisation. Here, you are taking a nucleus of one cell and putting it into the cytoplasm of another egg from which the nucleus has been removed. That is the same cloning process that produced Dolly the Sheep.

This is where the truth telling comes in. No one anywhere in the world, anywhere, has produced a single embryonic stem cell line this way. Nowhere. The Newcastle experiment produced an embryo that lasted for about 48 hours and then died.

The whole idea of cloning is that you produce cells that are recognised as immunologically the same as the donor who gave the nucleus, so supposedly you are getting around immune rejection problems from genetic mismatches. But no one has produced embryonic stem cells. On top of that there has not been a single therapy produced from human embryonic stem cells of any kind. There are some trials being done but there is very little promising coming out of them. There have also been a few animal experiments using embryonic stem cell advantages but very little has been observed. So after five to ten years of trying no one has produced a single therapy from embryonic stem cells. That's just a fact.

There have also been huge problems with embryonic stem cells transplanted in that they cause tumours to form. The scientists working in this field who started off by saying this is going to produce stem cells we can transplant, are now saying that's a possible application but if so it is at least 15 to 20 years off, and now they are talking about them being there just to test drugs or observe how diseased cells divide.

CT: Scientists claim the research on stem cells from embryos are necessary to help find cures for serious diseases. You're saying that's not the case. What alternatives are there?

PS: Adult stem cells from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood have already produced therapies for over seventy different diseases which are used in clinical applications around the world at the moment. There are 300 odd trials going on. We think the truth is not being told to the population.

CT: Do you think the media is biased?

PS: There is definite media shut out. In a Sky interview I did, when I was asked for my objections, I talked about crossing the Rubicon and I went on to say that there were ethical compassionate alternatives using adult and umbilical stem cells. When they played it out on Sky News they cut out the last bit and they always do that. We are not allowed to give any objections that are scientific. We are only allowed to give reflex, fundamentalist, religious, bigot type objections. So the scientists on our side are not allowed to say it.

Lord Winston in The Telegraph (12 May 2008) said that if they didn't pass the provision for animal human hybrids it would not shake the world of stem cell research. He wasn't that bothered basically. On the other hand, Gordon Brown says it's vital for research, and all the people from the Parkinson's societies and diabetes societies. Probably 80 per cent of MPs believe it.

Why are they getting misinformed? I'm going to be very blunt here. Firstly, scientists are not telling the truth. They are being very selective in the way they are advising. I think they have huge vested interests, ideologically and financially, in that their research grants are coming from the Government, and they don't want any restrictions at all, they want to keep all avenues open. There are also biotechnology companies involved, the institutions have closed ranks on this, and in the media, particularly the BBC and Times newspaper would be the worst offenders in simply not telling the truth.

That brings us to the fourth ethical objection. This concerns good stewardship of tax payers' money. Apart from umbilical and adult stem cells there was a new development last year in November to produce IPS (induced pluripotent stem cells). This is where you take ordinary adult body cells and you re-programme them to produce cells that to all intents and purposes behave like embryonic stem cells - thus removing the need to produce embryonic stem cells from embryos.

Ian Wilmut, who produced Dolly the Sheep, when iPS first appeared on the scene he said he would not be doing any more embryonic stem cell research. The Medical Research Council has announced £600,000 of grants for doing iPS research, but they are not talking about it publicly.

The picture is that you've got a Government that has made this decision about going down the animal-hybrid route. They've had all these consultations and meanwhile the science has been marching on. Even while this has gone through the House of Lords there have been new advances. Around the world people are talking about iPS as the single most important scientific advance in 30 years in medicine.

CT: So it's quite an important development then?

PS: Mega - like discovering penicillin. But the media, the scientific establishment, the Government are not talking about it here.

CT: Why do you think that is?

PS: That's a good question. For the scientists, there are a number of people who have been made international celebrities through this. Research grants come from the Government and tax payers' money. If you ask them privately - and I have done this - they wax lyrical about iPS, they say this is the future.

I was at an all-party health meeting where a professor from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said he thought in a few years there would be no need for saviour siblings because cord blood and adult stem cells would have removed the need. Have you heard anyone say that publicly?

CT: No, I haven't.

PS: No and you wont, not until this legislation is passed through. So our objections are both ethical and scientific. That's why we are pushing for a ban. We don't think we'll get it cos the indoctrination is too deep and vested interests are too strong.

The saviour siblings, it's like these hype cancer cures. Someone comes along and says don't go down the route of radiotherapy, chemotherapy, take this new remedy and it will cure your cancer. And people with cancer are desperate. And if they are dying they are extremely gullible. I think these patient groups have been led down the garden path. They don't understand the science.

The way the debate is being spun is that we have these religious fundamentalists, evangelicals and Catholics who don't care about suffering people and who are trying to stop it because there are concerned about embryos that no one else is concerned about it, whereas our real objection is a scientific one. We think people are being lied to and misled. I'll make a prediction: no therapies whatsoever will come from human animal hybrids.

CT: If cures for serious diseases were to come from embryonic stem cells, do you think exceptions could be made?

PS: No, because they are still unethical and unnecessary. There are ethical treatments around. If you've got an ethical route that works, if you've got one that's already delivering across a whole range of different diseases and a limited amount of tax payers' money to invest where are you going to put your resources?

I see animal human hybrids as a dead end street scientifically. Saviour siblings are unnecessary. We should have been banking cord blood for the last ten years and then we would have had enough cord blood to effectively provide a match for everyone in the country. There are 600,000 births and we've got less than a few thousand cord blood units banked around the country. There just hasn't been the investment.

CT: Some scientists argue that this Bill will help keep British scientists at the forefront of stem cell research.

PS: No, they will be left behind. With saviour siblings, the Bill allows them not only to use cord blood, but bone marrow and part organs. And Lord Winston said he was very unhappy about the saviour siblings proposals because of the pressure it would place upon children.

You put Mr [Jayson] Whitaker on national television saying how his son was saved by a saviour sibling with no bad effects and then the heart of the whole nation goes out. But it's one case. We don't hear anything about the Hashmis case because saviour siblings didn't work for the Hashmis. You could count on one hand the number of cases where it's actually worked.

It is very wasteful of embryos, using around 50 embryos per saviour sibling produced because you throw away every one that is not a proper match or doesn't carry the gene. And there are ethical alternatives like using adult stem cells and umbilical stem cells.

CT: So you would like the Government to shift the focus of its investment away from stem cells from embryos to the ethical alternatives?

PS: Yes. We would like to see the Government put a huge amount of investment into cord blood banking and adult stem cell research and I believe Britain is falling ever further behind on those areas internationally.

CT: Do you think the church is switched on to this issue?

PS: I think the church is largely unaware of what is happening. The Church of England has been silent throughout the whole process, because their hierarchy take a gradualist view of the embryo. Therefore they have said nothing about this Bill. You can compare it with the Joffe Bill a few years ago when they were very outspoken. The Church of England has been completely absent from this Bill.

The only ones involved have been the Catholics and the Catholics have tried very hard but they have been sidelined as though their only objection is to do with embryo research.

CT: So you want Christians to read up on this?

PS: Yes. I think as a church generally we are not that socially aware and don't take our responsibilities on public policy that seriously. I think when you tell people about it they do get concerned and they do pray and will sign petitions and will write to their MPs.

The major problem has been getting the message from the para-church organisations into the pulpit. I think the main issue is that as a rule pastors around the country are ignorant and therefore their churches are not being fed on these kinds of things unless they've got members who are part of para-church organisations that are telling them.

Humanly speaking I think you only had to see the Bill pass 340 - 78 at its second reading and of those 78 only 10 were Labour MPs - and this Bill will be whipped at third reading. I think because of the misinformation it is very unlikely humanly speaking that these provisions will be thrown out and it will be hard to win anything on abortion because of the huge number of pro-abortion MPs in Parliament.

Seven out of 10 women in this country want the upper limit for abortion to come down from 24 weeks to 13 weeks, which is the European average. Out of the Labour MPs that are women, only three are not happy with the current abortion law - Ruth Kelly, Geraldine Smith and Claire Curtis Thomas. I would say they are all extremists when it comes to abortion, they don't want any change in the law that has led to seven million abortions since 1967.

CT: You said it's not going to be humanly defeated.

PS: That's shorthand for 'it's going to take a miracle' really! We're still praying for a miracle. The best scenario would be that they just kick this Bill into the long grass, approaching the end of the parliamentary session, and that we don't come back to it again and that the science moves on and people become a bit more sensible in the mean time.

The only way I could see that happening is if the Brown Government implodes completely and they lose their leader and have a massive defeat in the Crewe by-election and it's only emergency legislation for the remainder of the session.

Certainly at Alive and Kicking we don't feel we are going to get any change in the abortion law until we get a change of Government. That doesn't mean we are party political in any way cos we work very hard with MPs who agree with us on the issues and we are hugely supportive of them. But it just so happens that a far greater proportion of the Government's MPs have been misled into woolly thinking on these issues.

We see it as part of our Christian responsibility to point out to people where they stand and try and get in people at the next election that are going to put in just and fair laws in the statute books.

My cynical, or perhaps realistic view of the future is that we are praying and hoping for a miracle and if there is one that would be wonderful. If this Bill goes through unchanged, and humanly speaking I think that's the most likely outcome, then my prediction would be that with respect to saviour siblings and animal human hybrids it just won't deliver and we will find that out in time. With abortion we might get a little bit more. We might get the upper limit down to 20, although that would mean a lot of pro-choice people abstaining or just not being there, but we won't get a significant change in the abortion law without a new government.