Human beings themselves reject and thus kill fertilised embryos naturally. This happens in the event of miscarriages and at earlier stages when the fertilised embryo is rejected by the mother's immune system as a foreign body or a defective organism.

The clump of cells, in this case, fertilised and kept outside of a live host and thus not capable of developing into a human, cannot realisitically be given any higher significance than that of a similar multi celled organism.

The point is that the seperation of church and state is meant to be absolute! The belief of one individual, or indeed of many, in a God, or what can only be described as the "concept" of a soul, should not dictate the path of legitimate and sincere scientific research.

The church has persecuted many a great mind acting ahead of it's time, based on it's "blissfull" ignorance of what it does not want to understand, and should not be accorded any power in this debate.

adam, swansea, uk

“To the Christian views: WHY is an embryo a human being? Prove it, using arguments that may convince an atheist, or accept that your views cannot be forced upon others.
John Scott, London”

Open an embryology textbook and you will find that life begins at fertilisation. Being life it must be of a species. If it is the product of the fertilisation of human egg by human sperm I would suggest it is of the species “homo sapiens”. A human being is defined as any member of the species “homo sapiens”.

Whay part of this can you prove wrong?

Pauline Gately, Surrey,

Also this week we have heard from the ever-vocal nay-sayers. The expected arguments emerged from the Catholic church, they claim we are again 'playing God', among other arguments that it is 'not natural'.

I think it is important to make completely unequivocal, we're not going to see gigantic Spider-people or monstrous gorilla-men terrorising our communities, and that these sciences are important for biologists to test on subjects that are as close to humans as possible, for our own benefit, in advancements in medicine for example. Surely, this is good?

Also, I think 'playing God' is no bad thing, when it comes to preserving human life by researching and advancing medicine in diseases like Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis . And I cannot think of anything more natural than human inquisitiveness, and our desire to cross boundaries and invent new solutions, isn't this just another example of this?

http://debateclub.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=2036563%3ATopic%3A241

Troy, London, London

Greg Lorriman,

If it has a soul it is a human being. So the question generally resolves down to whether or not there is a God. Same with abortion. There is no proof that there is no God, so the atheist position is presumption: ie. unjustified, irrational. Evidence is only enough for an opinion, not a belief.

The atheist position is a NON belief, there is no proof that there is a God, the burden of evidence falls with the religious and not the atheist. Neither do I believe that faries exist, I cannot disprove this but through looking at the evidence I am fairly sure they don't.

And why must I assume that anyone has a soul let alone a bundle of cells?

Tom, Worcester, UK

John Scott:"WHY is an embryo a human being? Prove it, using arguments that may convince an atheist, or accept that your views cannot be forced upon others. "

If it has a soul it is a human being. So the question generally resolves down to whether or not there is a God. Same with abortion. There is no proof that there is no God, so the atheist position is presumption: ie. unjustified, irrational. Evidence is only enough for an opinion, not a belief.

The religious position is that, to those willing to persevere in asking, God proves/reveals his own existence. The problem of subjectivity, as illustrated by "The Matrix" is not a problem to an almighty God. That is why we are so certain even in the face of the suffering of the innocent and so many other objections, and even if we ourselves are mad.

We presume nothing: unless God tells us that there is no soul in the conceived bundle of cells we must assume that it may have a soul, and order our laws accordingly.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

Since all parties are concerned about successful disease treatments, adult (or post-birth) stem cells are the most effective. To date, there are 73 diseases for which adult stem cells have been used to develop treatments, while embryonic stem cells have produced 0 treatments. (www.stemcellresearch.org)

Nancy, Newburg, USA

To those with atheist views, Christians might also ask, why is an embryo not a human being? According to your argument you have an equal duty to convince me before I stop believing in my 'fairy-tales'.

Peter Morrow, Tandragee, Northern Ireland

British Muslims too are opposing the Embryo Bill as it is blasphemous,inhumane and immoral.
Human-animal embryos are a threat to human dignity and abuse of the highest creation:man
It will bring children without a fathers,abuses and destroys ta lot of embryos.
It will produce many illegitimate conceptions and unaccepted surrogacy
British Muslim leaders, many mosques and organisations have been writing to Lords and MPs to oppose the bill!

Dr A.Majid Katme, London, UK

To the Christian views: WHY is an embryo a human being? Prove it, using arguments that may convince an atheist, or accept that your views cannot be forced upon others.

John Scott, London,

Why do we have a Whip system in the first place. I vote for an MP to represent my interests not those of the PM. It would be more appropriate to give the electorate the right of recall. Then they would be more responsive to the needs of the electorate and not to a Party machine. Perhaps that would be getting too close to real democracy!

Sanny, Glasgow, Scotland

“It’s a very important part of our society and a very important part of the Christian faith that you should have respect for human embryos. If you stop obeying God, you start to limit the rights of human beings and this is a case in point."

Where in the bible does it say "thou must not take embryo's and use them for medical research"?

Why, in the 21st Century should we be allowing our ethics to be dictated to us by a 1st Century religion? Why should we believe that if there is a god, he'd rather us protect a foetus that is not guaranteed a life than save the lives of millions.

Exactly what kind of God do these people actually worship that he would be happy to see the continuation of human suffering?

Taff, Newport,

Dont climb down Gordon put up a fight and show the country how tough decisions are made, sack those who dont conform.

Cromwell, Leeds, England

Even new Labour must see that this is a moral matter and that there must be a free vote so that MPs can follow their consciences and not the diktat of the Labour whips. The reason they are reluctant to allow a free vote is because they know they would lose such a vote.

George, Bolton, England