Embryo experiments debase meaning of EU

IN 1992, the then president of the EU Commission, Jacques Delors, said: “If in the next 10 years we haven’t managed to give a soul to Europe, to give it spirituality and meaning, the game will be up.”

Mr Delors was referring to the fact that if the “European project” was to survive, it would have to offer its citizens something other than legal and economic know-how. The EU would have to become focused on respect for human rights and cultural diversity.

The fact that the EU is now introducing proposals that will allow not just experimentation on human embryos but will financially support it, suggests the EU has failed in this regard.

Most countries are introducing regulations that will in some way prohibit experimentation. Yet the EU is now intent on funding such activities despite its apparent contravention of international human rights laws.

Further, the EU, through its funding of the UNFPA and Marie Stopes International, is now aiding coercive population control programmes in developing countries. It is difficult to believe this is the EU Mr Delors envisaged.

S O’Brien,

10, Kilbrack Lawn,

Skehard Rd,

Cork.