“Science does matter, but morals matter more”

 

John Hayes MP South Holland & The Deepings

Shadow Minister for Education

 

 From the debate on  the passage of the Third Reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the House of Commons on October 22^nd. Reported and discussed in The Catholic Herald.

 

John Hayes MP for South Holland and The Deepings began with a quote from Chesterton “Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.”

 

Mr Hayes went on to say “Surely humanity means that we regard other human life as we regard our own.  Such is the ethics of humanity.  So it is our shared humanity that distinguishes us from animals; that determines how we should behave to one another; and determines especially that we should not deliberately distort the lives, or expedite the deaths, of fellow humans, whether those fellow human beings are born or unborn.”

 

“It seems to me that the expectation of living – for those incapable of conscious choice – is the same because of their shared humanity, and that is the prevailing view that should underpin our considerations.  It is not self- consciousness, capacity for reason or autonomy that makes us human, but something altogether more fundamental.  Of course science matters, but frankly morals matter more”

 

The editorial went on to say

 

“We associate ourselves with those fine words.  In truth, for all the great and admirable advances of science, we have only scraped the shell of knowledge. Global warming, earthquakes, tsunamis- even the current economic crisis – all remind us how little we know and can control.  And the whole realm of the spiritual: the very elements of the dignity that comes from being made in the image of God elude the microscope.  “All things have been given me by my Father” said Jesus.  That might with profit be written over the door of every laboratory and debating chamber.