A GOVERNMENT adviser on genetics has provoked uproar by suggesting that it may be acceptable to destroy babies with “defects” soon after birth.

John Harris, a member of the Human Genetics Commission, told a parliamentary meeting last week that he did not see any moral difference in aborting a fully grown unborn baby at 40 weeks and committing infanticide.

Harris, professor of bioethics at Manchester University, declined to say what defects might justify terminating the baby’s life, or the maximum permissible age for such a course of action.

But yesterday he was reported to have said that he did not think infanticide was always unjustifiable. He did not believe there was any “moral change” that occurred during the journey down the birth canal.

Harris, who also advises Britain’s doctors as a member of the British Medical Association’s ethics committee, is said to have argued that there was no moral difference between terminating a foetus found by tests to have defects and one where the parents only discovered the abnormalities at birth.

There is concern that the growing use of ultrasound and genetic testing to identify abnormalities in unborn babies is not sufficiently regulated. Critics also say there is inadequate definition of what constitutes an abnormality sufficiently serious to merit termination.

Harris was speaking at the the launch of a public consultation on whether laws governing test-tube baby clinics should be tightened in the light of new technology. It was chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy, who also chairs the Human Genetics Commission.

Ian Gibson, MP, chairman of the science and technology committee, said: “The debate was principally about designer babies and sex selection. Harris said everything in this area must be open for consideration and infanticide could not be ruled out.”

In the past Harris has spoken of the need to allow people to buy and sell human organs as a means of increasing the supply for transplant operations. He also recently expressed support for sex selection for social reasons among babies. “If it isn’t wrong to wish for a bonny, bouncing baby girl, why would it be wrong to make use of technology to play fairy godmother?” he said.

He was not available yesterday to comment on the anger generated by his comments. The Pro-Life lobby group, whose members attended the meeting, reported what he had said and condemned it.

Its spokesperson, Julia Millington, who questioned Harris during the debate, said: “It is frightening to think that university students are being educated by somebody who endorses the killing of newborn babies, and equally worrying to discover that such a person is the Establishment’s ‘preferred’ bioethicist.”

However, Michael Wilkes, chairman of the BMA ethics committee, said Harris was simply trying to encourage logical and consistent argument. “There are many who might concur that there is no difference between a full-term foetus and a newborn baby, although the majority would see there is a substantial difference. Abortion is legal but termination after birth is killing.”

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