Is the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority fit for purpose?

September 14, 2010

In the early 1980s many people both inside and outside Parliament were seeking to prohibit experimentation on human embryos. In response, the government convened a committee of enquiry, aiming to circumvent the possibility of a ban. The Warnock Report duly concluded that ‘the embryo of the human species should be afforded some protection in law’. The committee was in favour of research involving the destruction of human embryos but ‘because of the special status that we accord to the human embryo, such research must be subject to stringent controls and monitoring’. (BioNews)