As a parent of four teenage children I frequently say it is important to pick your battles carefully. Fight the wrong one and you will be humiliated. Difficult to decide which makes me more angry, the demagoguery of the Roman Catholic leaders or the intransigence of Gordon Brown. Cardinal Keith O'Brien talks of
"monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life", adding that it would allow experiments of "Frankenstein proportion”.The ordinary Roman Catholic is not helpd by this sort of demagoguery, but then then Roman Catholic hierarchy is not renowned for being broad minded.
As a doctor, I know that current legislation on embryo research is nearly twenty years old and, for that reason alone, needs redrafting. I would not pretend it is an easy area ethically and, where ever the line is drawn, its impact will have a degree of arbitrariness leaving a handful of people on either side of the line unhappy. The line still needs to be drawn.
Free vote or not, many Labour Roman Catholics will not support the legislation whether or not Gordon Brown wave his big stick. On a free vote in the House of Commons the legislation will pass. He will get the legislation he wants. And, by allowing a free vote, we will see the House of Commons at its best, freely debating a difficult and challenging subject.
