REVOLUTIONARY medical treatments that replace damaged organs with replicas made from a patient’s own tissue or from “off-the-shelf” tissue banks moved a stage closer this week in Britain. In a momentous decision that could catalyse similar moves in other industrialised countries, Tony Blair’s government has recommended changes to the law that would allow controversial research on human embryos.
But the British government is not ordering its own MPs to vote for the changes in the law. When the proposed legislation is presented to MPs later this year, they will be free to vote according to their consciences.
To make the…
