“I have deep respect for those who do not agree with some of the provisions in the bill because of religious conviction,” wrote Gordon Brown the day before Monday’s Commons vote on hybrid embryos. “But I believe that we owe it to ourselves and future generations to introduce these measures and, in particular, to give our unequivocal backing, within the right framework of rules and standards, to stem-cell research.”
In those two sentences Brown managed to capture all that is wrong in how we approach public debates about bioethics.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
