Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly valid point—one could indeed advance that argument. On the whole, in vitro fertilisation to aid conception has been accepted by many as valid, particularly if it is carried out, in essence, randomly. However, if it was carried out selectively the hon. Gentleman would be right. I want to move on. I was making a preliminary point, because as the debate moves away—as I hope I now will—from the fundamental potential ethical divide over interference in a natural process, what troubles me is that the House may be lulled by arguments that what we are doing is not very important or does not matter. It is important that we are not lulled into a situation where the Minister says, ““All these things will add to freedom of choice””, which was one of the arguments. That may be so, but the provisions will be subject to the HFEA, which was set up as the arbiter of that choice. That is not pure freedom of choice at all. We are not saying, ““We leave it to everybody to make up their mind according to their conscience.”” Instead, we are setting up a whole series of processes. The Minister says that the processes will be limited, but what do some of those serving on the HFEA say? An external adviser, Dr. Simon Fishel, predicted that saviour siblings would soon be used to treat children with various forms of anaemia, and could eventually help those with other conditions. He said:"““You might start looking at organs…Suppose you have a family with a gene for polycystic kidney disease.""If they are going to have another child they could use these techniques not only to ensure that it does not suffer from the condition, but also use tissue typing just in case an older sibling does need a transplant later.””" That is not what the Government intend, but it is worth the Committee bearing in mind the possible consequences of the decisions that we are making this evening. There has been a lot of debate about the impact that the decision to bring a saviour sibling into the world will have on the saviour sibling, and whether it will depend on whether he fulfils the expectations of his parents. Those are valid points, but the question that we must ask, having balanced what we aim to achieve against the possible disbenefits, is whether it is necessary to proceed down that route. To argue that we are not engaging in design is a piece of casuistry that does not help us in our deliberations, because whether we are doing it for good or ill, that is what we are doing.