Christians are surely the last people who should be getting uptight about healing the sick; after all, Jesus was reportedly a bit of a dab hand at it himself.

OK, I’ve never actually read the Douay-Rheims Bible on which I presume Cardinal Keith O’Brien bases his teachings on. But according to the King James Version that I am familar with, Christ cured dozens of people with ailments ranging from unspecified fever, leprosy, menorrhagia and/or haemophilia, withered limbs, dropsy, deafness, blindness and paralysis. What’s more – unlike the average NHS general practitioner – he didn’t even have a problem with Saturday call-outs.

All of this makes Christ a tough act to follow. But humanity could be on the verge of doing just that.

Thanks to stem cell research, for the first time in 2000 years, it may be possible for those with broken spines once more to walk. Soon doctors might be able to inject insulin-producing cells into diabetics, and treat effectively for the first time multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease. I mention MS and MND for a reason; the first killed my mother, the second a friend only a couple of years older than I am.

Yet the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church – basing itself on 13th century Thomist natural law theology – is effectively saying that those in the future with the diseases from which my mum and Richard suffered so much for decades before dying lingering and painful deaths should be denied a possible cure.

As things stand, scientists do not have enough fully human stem cells to research on in order to ensure the necessary medical breakthroughs are achieved. That is why they are asking to be allowed to take animal eggs and inject them with DNA. We are talking cells in a test tube here, nothing more grotesque than that.

Yet there are those ostensibly on the left who believe that the very Catholicism that would forbid this qualitative leap offers some kind of ‘moral compass’ for Britain today; for me, any moral compass that postulates a morally perfect God – and that is an essential tenet of all three major monotheisms – would dictate strong backing for the Embryo Research Bill.

Surely Catholic MPs of all major parties – not least leading figures in a Labour government who purport to be torn on this question – can see that? For the record, I do favour politicians having the right to abstain on legislation on conscience grounds, not least because in the entirely hypothetical event that I ever hold public office, I expect that I would routingly invoke it.

However, I must agree with one leftwing blogger, who points out that few enough ‘pro-life’ MPs utilised such an obvious get-out when it came to trooping through the lobby in favour of mass slaughter in Iraq.

Never mind liberation theology. The left should be fully in support of what science writer Ronald Bailey has called liberation biology against both bioconservatives and bioluddites.

As his book points out, the biotech revolution promise even those of us who are healthy an additional 20-40 years on their lifespan. Catholics, evangelicals and other such confident believers in an afterlife are perfectly free to turn down such an opportunity.

As I expect to be a long time dead – and given that I am in a final salary pension scheme – I’d jump at that chance. The sooner the boffins do the business – and the picture illustrates them doing just that – the better.

About the author
Dave Osler is a regular contributor. He is a British journalist and author, ex-punk and ex-Trot. Also at: Dave's Part
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