Letter: Use of foetuses is repugnant

DR ROGER Gosden ('Sledgehammers and eggs', 17 April) takes me to task for introducing an Amendment which followed up the passage of my Private Member's Bill to prohibit the use of eggs from aborted babies for fertilisation purposes.

He might have been wise to research the matter a little more thoroughly, for he was wrong on several points. It was not 'only a handful of MPs who stayed to support' my Amendment, but a substantial number.

Dr Gosden suggested that I had neither visited infertility clinics, nor consulted the scientists involved, nor spoken to patients. Had he bothered to check this with me he would have discovered that I have done all these things. My Amendment will not stop research, and I can assure Dr Gosden that I know the facts very well. He complains that this legislation will not stop abortion: but it was never directed to that aim.

Scientists should perhaps reflect that, just because they have found out how to do something, it is not automatically right that they should do it. It is utterly repugnant that the bodies of aborted unwanted babies should be plundered to make wanted ones. It offends against the most basic of human rights and, as has twice been demonstrated, is unacceptable to the House of Commons.

Dame Jill Knight MP

House of Commons

London SW1