MPs attack fertility law overhaul

Radical proposals to overhaul Britain's fertility laws were plunged into controversy today as MPs attacked the plans as "light on ethics".

The science and technology committee triggered the outcry after it backed moves to allow parents using IVF to choose the sex of their baby.

The proposal is one of a string of controversial recommendations. Others include the mixing of human and animal cells in laboratory experiments and what critics call "designer babies" screened for disability. Pro-life MPs on the committee who disagreed with the report published a statement disowning its radical contents.

The dissenting MPs, both Labour and Tory, alleged that the report had been "rushed out" before the election. They said it ignored public concern over abortion and the way embryos were discarded in research.

Committee chairman Dr Ian Gibson used his casting vote to approve the report.

The MPs who voted for the proposal said: "The issue of sex selection is particularly sensitive. We recognise that many people are concerned about its use for social reasons, but we have not heard compelling evidence to prohibit its use for family balancing at least. We see no role for a regulator to determine how an embryo is screened before being implanted into a woman's womb. This should be a matter for patients, in consultation with their doctors."

Dr Gibson said the report would go to the Department of Health, but he expected a full parliamentary debate on the issues after the general election. "I think some of the proposals

will be taken up, almost certainly," he said.

The recommendations also called for the anonymity of sperm donors to be reinstated. It called for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to be disbanded and replaced by a new Regulatory Agency for Fertility and Tissues, which would have much more limited powers.

The five dissenting MPs - Labour's Paul Farrelly,

Kate Hoey, Tony McWalter, Geraldine Smith and Tory Bob Spink, said: "This report is unbalanced, light on ethics, goes too far in the direction of deregulation and is too dismissive of public opinion and much of the evidence. A thorough redrafting was needed, to put ethics and regulation back at the heart of all the conclusions, but this never happened."