PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
Prevention of Severe Handicap (20 December 1989)

Line 1, leave out from 'pioneering' to end and add: 'genetic disease research at centres investigating treatments and possible cures without the use of human embryos as guinea pigs; notes advances in cystic fibrosis research at the Toronto Children's Hospital and the University of Michigan, discoveries relating to muscular distrophy at Boston Children's Hospital, Downs Syndrome chromosome 21 gene analysis at L'Hopital Des Enfants Malades, Paris; welcomes successful bone marrow transplantation in genetic blood diseases and the significance of such remedies allied to somatic gene therapy relating to storage diseases and inborn errors of metabolism and central nervous system disorders such as Lesch Nyan Syndrome and Tay Sachs Disease; regrets that research at Hammersmith and St Mary's Hospitals, London, does not relate to the prevention, treatment or cure of severe handicap but concentrates on destroying affected embryos; observes that remedies based on such unsound medicine and poor genetic practice require, for optimum efficiency, the destruction of gene carriers, the parents rather than destruction of their offspring since as Motulsky demonstrated in 1971, destruction of embryos and foetuses affected by cystic fibrosis would require 1,250 years simply to have the gene frequency in the population because spontaneous mutation occurs in families with no previous history; records that in twenty years there have been no advances in treatment or cures for genetic diseases resulting from research on human embryos; condemns as cruel and premature unsubstantiated claims of success about embryo biopsy followed by normal live birth; and supports, unequivocally, legislation to ban research upon living human embryos'.

Sponsored by:
Lord Braine of Wheatley (Conservative)