Science vs superstition

Public Health Minister says hybrid embryo science has been grotesquely misrepresented.

Dawn Primarolo, Public Health Minister

ANDREW MARR: I'm going to turn now to that embryology story directly because, as I said, MPs this week are going to vote on whether to cut the abortion limit between four and eight weeks, there's different votes there.

And also on allowing these mixed human and animal embryos plus so-called saviour siblings.

Well Dawn Primarolo is the Minister in charge of all of that and she joins me now from her Bristol constituency. Welcome Minister.

DAWN PRIMAROLO: Good morning.

ANDREW MARR: Can I ask you first of all about the abortion votes, there's a lot of very, very high feeling on both sides of this. What is you sense at the moment about what's going to happen, or is it genuinely an open vote?

DAWN PRIMAROLO: Oh it's genuinely an open vote. I mean abortion wasn't, isn't in the Bill as drafted, but quite a lot of amendments have been tabled which will be voted on on Tuesday evening and it's completely open vote. But for my own view I've supported 24 weeks.

I supported it when it was made clear that in all the time that studies have been done actually survival rates are not changing and both the BMA, the Royal College of Nurses, obstetricians and gynaecologists, they're making quite clear that this is not a matter of science, this is a matter of how far a foetus has developed, and that the survival rates over the last 18 years really haven't changed.

ANDREW MARR: Is your sense, is your instinct that the law is going to change this week?

DAWN PRIMAROLO: No, I think that there is still a very intense debate and I think that those who were seeking to move the date from 24 weeks haven't made the case in terms of either women's rights or in what the medical profession is advising us on what's possible.

Much of the argument is about people who don't support a woman's right to choose in the first place. So I think that it will be a very intense debate in the House of Commons, as it should be, and I for one will be voting and supporting the status quo.

ANDREW MARR: They, whether or not they've won the argument, do you think, you don't think they've got the votes either do you at the moment?

DAWN PRIMAROLO: I really couldn't predict Andrew...

ANDREW MARR: Ahh - it's genuinely, genuinely unpredictable?

DAWN PRIMAROLO: I think, and these debates always are, because unlike on the Embryology Bill where I've been speaking to MPs and asking them about the particular issues and talking them through what's actually in the Bill on an abortion debate each MP will make up their own mind. I hope that the House agrees that the decision they made last time when they considered time limits was the correct one, and that there'll be no change from 24 weeks.

ANDREW MARR: Now there's a lot of other issues of course under debate, including these mixed or hybrid human animal embryos.

A lot of people just read about them and think, yuk, their stomachs turn over. The Prime Minister wading in to the debate very strong today, basically sees this as a fight between science on the one hand and superstition on the other. Is that how you see it?

DAWN PRIMAROLO: I think it's very important that we understand the science, yes, and that we understand clearly what is being proposed in the Bill. In 1990 after the seminal work by Baroness Warnock it was agreed that we should regulate this type of science so that we were clear, the framework within which licences could be applied and what would be undertaken.

What's necessary now as science is advancing, and fantastic potential treatments for uncurable diseases are sort of within our grasp, that we make sure that we bring that science into the regulatory framework, and there's been a lot of really grotesque misrepresentation.

ANDREW MARR: So, well let me ask you about those particular mixed or hybrid embryos. Why, a lot of people of faith, Muslims and Catholics in particular, but a lot of other people too, just find the whole idea stomach-turning, as I said. Why are they wrong?

DAWN PRIMAROLO: Well I think this will go and I'm not going to argue with people about their faith. This is about a decision about where life begins. With these particular scientific licences we're talking about under 14 days, a collection of cells where it's vitally important that the only way to develop the treatments and to research the treatments, is to use embryonic stem cells, and they cannot be derived in any other way.

I mean adult stem cells will not be able to regenerate all the cells that are in our bodies, and so what the Act says, under very, very clear controls and prohibitions, where no other research path would enable us to look at cures for Parkinson's, Motor Neurone disease, Alzheimer's, they're under strict licences, controlled under specific restrictions on days. This work can be undertaken on cells in order to see whether treatments can be developed.

ANDREW MARR: And it's the case, is it, that you've made a series of free votes available in the House of Commons partly because many of your own Ministers would have voted, in your view, the wrong way if you hadn't?

DAWN PRIMAROLO: Well I think that the...

ANDREW MARR: They'd have rebelled...

DAWN PRIMAROLO: ...reasons that the Prime Minister came to this view was because it will be the first time that we would have discussed these types of treatments and research projects, and with saviour siblings this will be the first time. And clearly as you're pointing out, there are ethical reasons that need to be discussed and that is something that's subject to the free vote.

ANDREW MARR: You were originally going to whip it weren't you, you were going make people vote with the government or resign?

DAWN PRIMAROLO: Well, no I think that it was always made clear that the Prime Minister was considering how to take that forward, and to recognise what the challenges are. I think what's important to say is that this Bill is an ethical framework.

I know of no scientist undertaking, or wanting to undertake, this vitally important work, doesn't think carefully about the ethics and what they're going to do. And what the framework says is that this research can only be undertaken if no other alternative in order to develop the treatments for these awful and incurable diseases...

ANDREW MARR: Right.

DAWN PRIMAROLO: ...at the moment is open to us.

ANDREW MARR: All right...

DAWN PRIMAROLO: And that's really what we've got to decide. Are we going to say to future generations we had the opportunity to develop these treatments but we decided not to, I don't think that's acceptable.

ANDREW MARR: Dawn Primarolo thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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