The Government once again finds itself in a muddle over the relationship between the state and the human body. Last week, Gordon Brown signalled a willingness to embrace the principle of “presumed consent”. Put simply, the National Health Service will presume that any patient consents to give over his or her organs after death, unless there is written evidence to the contrary or a veto by relatives. The Government’s laudable intention is to address the shortage of human organs available for those people desperately in need of transplants. The proposed solution, though, fails to deal with the Government’s own inefficiency in recruiting organ donors. Rather than assuming ownership of people’s bodies after their death, the state should require people while they are living to give or withhold consent.

Today, the Government is in danger of stumbling again over the complex ethical issues surrounding the use of human tissue. In the House of Lords, ministers will come under fire for proposing a regime which is accused of being too restrictive over the quest for consent when it comes to stem cell research. Rather than assuming the rights of the state, the Government is this time presuming the inclinations of the individual. Science could, as a result, suffer.

Sir Martin Evans, awarded a Nobel Prize for his work last year, and a host of similarly distinguished scientists, writing in the letters page of The Times today, endorse the core of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. But they urge the Government to be flexible and accept amendments which will make it easier for the material necessary for research to be used in future.

Stem cell research as a whole opens up huge opportunities for progress in the effort to cure or contain conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes or motor neurone disease among many others. Yet the use of embryonic tissue also, of course, raises ethical questions. There is a need to strike a balance between these considerations.

The question is whether the Bill as framed has achieved this. In its current form it would prevent research relating to embryos from being undertaken from human donations made either by those who are dead, but were willing to leave all or part of their bodies to science and thus the decisions of scientists, or others who are alive but have donated tissue, for example, anonymously.

The principle of consent as such is not at stake here. There is no dispute about it, nor is there debate over whether those who make contributions of this kind in the years ahead should be asked if they would care to make an exception, on moral grounds, to anything which might become connected with embryonic stem cell activity. What is being suggested, however, is that it should be presumed retrospectively that, as some donors who it is impossible to contact might have objected to being associated with this branch of research, there should be a blanket prohibition in this area.

This does seem too restrictive. Ministers would be wise to accept an amendment put down by Lord Patel, the Chairman of the UK Stem Cell Network Steering Committee, which designates seven conditions that if satisfied would allow for past donations to be utilised provided that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority were then convinced that this was appropriate.

Britain is a world leader in this crucial area of research. It would be lamentable if a confused interpretation of what to do with those who wish to assist the cause of science were to be adopted, only to damage medical progress.