9 October 2012
It is with great interest and pleasure that we learned of the award of the 2012 Nobel Prize for medicine to Professors Gurdon and Yamanaka for their pioneering work on stem cell research. As the Nobel committee rightly states, their work has revolutionized science. In fact it does much more than that as it offers the hope for relief from suffering for millions of human beings throughout the world. However, whatever the immense merits of… read more »
C’est avec grand plaisir et intérêt que nous avons pris connaissance de l’attribution du prix Nobel de médecine aux Professeurs Gurdon et Yamanaka pour leur travail sur les cellules souches. Comme l’a souligné le Comité du prix Nobel, cette recherche porte les germes d’une révolution scientifique qui offre l’espoir d’un soulagement des souffrances de millions d’êtres humains dans le monde. Bien que nous reconnaissions les immenses mérites de John B. Gurdon et Shinya Yamanaka, nous… read more »
23 May 2012
The EHF has launched a major campaign towards EU institutions to remove religious restrictions from EU policy on research Why now? European institutions are currently negotiating the Commission’s new proposal “Horizon 2020” which will set the rules for European Union (EU) funding for research in Europe for the rest of the decade. Like previous programmes, “Horizon 2020” raises ethical issues (article 16), one of which is the European funding for human embryonic stem cell (hESC)… read more »
29 November 2011
The EHF has called for religious influence on EU-funded research to be eliminated. At present, funding of research using embryonic stem cells is banned – the result of religious lobbying when the current framework was agreed. The Catholic church, in its response to a new and wide-ranging EU consultation on the framework for future scientific research, has said the ban should be maintained and even extended. It has even called for research to be commissioned specially designed… read more »
21 October 2011
The question of whether inventions and processes involving human genetic material should be patentable raises complex technical, legal, commercial and ethical issues. A European Union directive (1) dating from 1998 bans patents for “uses of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes”. The European Court of Justice has just issued a judgement (2) based on an interpretation of “embryo” that is radical and has potentially alarming implications. The ECJ said that the Directive “intended… read more »
18 May 2011
Many secular laws and policies have their roots in religion. In the second half of the 20th century law reforms removed much of this influence, with reform in most countries of laws on marriage and divorce, access to contraception, abortion, homosexuality and (in some places) assisted dying or euthanasia. Much, however, remains to be done. One current important concern is the religious attempt to frustrate promising lines of research for cures to many diseases using human embryonic… read more »
22 April 2008
The EHF took part in discussions on various matters sponsored by the former Group of Advisers on the Ethical Implications of Biotechnology in the period 1991-1997 – see Policy – Bio-ethics. The current equivalent body is the Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies.
4 April 2008
The EHF responded in November 2011 to an EU consultation on research policy with a robust rejection of religious interference in research using embryonic stem cells – see here. Some years ago the EHF was actively concerned with bioethical questions. The following three documents indicate our stance at that time: Medically-assisted Procreation and the Protection of the Human Embryo – a paper by Georges Liénard for a symposium on bioethics at the Council of Europe… read more »
30 November 1998
Comment s’articulent les concepts de bioéthique et de pluralisme à la politique et l’économie ? par le Professeur Yvon Englert, Clinique de Fertilité-Hôpital Erasme – U.L.B. – Bruxelles Cet article est tiré de la publication “Bioéthique en Europe” (FHE, Novembre 1998). L’analyse des pérégrinations du projet de directive européenne sur le brevetage des inventions biotechnologiques. Introduction Par l’essence même de sa construction, I’Union Européenne s’est tenue e l’éart des débats bioéthiques (1) qui ne font… read more »