“This is about people’s dream to start a family. That is not always possible and medical science can provide an increasingly better answer to this with this bill,” said MP Jan Paternotte (D66).
“I am a father and grandfather and I wish that for everyone,” said his VVD colleague Harry Bevers.
On Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives discussed a sensitive subject: the private member’s bill by Paternotte and Bevers to lift the ban on cultivating embryos for scientific research. Examining embryos in the first days should increase the chance of successful IVF treatments.
Only 25 percent of the treatments are now successful. Three attempts are reimbursed from the basic package, after which people have to pay for it themselves; that costs thousands of euros each time. In addition, the research could also provide knowledge about tackling, for example, hereditary diseases or serious genetic abnormalities.
Crucial role of CDA
A majority now appears to be cautiously emerging in the House, the initiators noted on Wednesday evening. In the previous House composition, that majority seemed far away, but thanks to the significant growth of the progressive D66 and the disappearance of the conservative NSC, the odds seem to have turned.
D66, VVD, GroenLinks-PvdA and SP, together accounting for 71 seats, are in favour. The initiators also count on support from the Party for the Animals (3 seats) and Volt (1). This means that there are exactly 75 seats, one short of a majority. D66 and VVD are eagerly looking forward to what the CDA members will do. That party appears to be playing a crucial role. One CDA MP provides support and the proposal is passed.
In most parties, MPs can individually decide whether to vote for or against on medical-ethical issues. The amendments and motions submitted will be voted on on Tuesday, and the bill will be voted on the following week.
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VVD and D66 want to get rid of the ban on growing embryos for research
Previously unthinkable
Support from the CDA used to be virtually unthinkable, but more than three years ago the party’s Scientific Institute stated in a report that cultivating embryos is justified if it can prevent hereditary diseases.
According to theologian and writer of the report André Poortman – who fell just outside the House as number 19 on the candidate list – until then the CDA spoke about medical ethics in “no more than some open doors and platitudes”, while the party should be a pioneer.
The CDA faction in the House no longer rejects an amendment to the Embryo Act by definition. Healthcare spokesperson Harmen Krul said in a debate in September that he did not want to see the discussion “black and white”. “On the one hand, there is the sincere desire of scientists to find new options to prevent and treat very serious diseases or to better support parents who want to have children. On the other hand, there are concerns about respect for human life in its very early stages and about the social consequences of pushing boundaries.”
Krul did not want to say whether his group is for or against the bill. Now, three months later, the party has imposed three additional conditions, which Krul calls “important” for his party. For example, the CDA wants an “extra lock on the door” to prevent “the door being opened to more far-reaching socially controversial techniques,” he writes. in an amendment that he submitted on Wednesday.
There should be much harsher penalties for researchers who violate the rules: a maximum of two years in prison, double the current amount. The CDA refers, among other things, to ‘germline modification’ – the adjustment of the DNA of embryos, which is otherwise prohibited.
The party also wants the number of approved and rejected research proposals for embryo cultivation to be reported every year, and that research into alternatives to embryo research be continued. In addition, the CDA wants to wait and see which amendments from other parties are adopted. Only then will the party make a final decision.
Evaluations
According to the Embryo Act of 2002, research may now only be conducted on remaining embryos that are not used by prospective parents. But those embryos are three to five days old, which is too old for proper research into the early stages of fertilization, say Paternotte and Bevers.
The Embryo Act assumed that the breeding ban would be temporary and would be lifted if there was social support for it. There have been three legal evaluations in recent decades, all three of which concluded that the ban could be lifted, but it did not happen.
Even now, the abolition of the ban is still sensitive. The Christian Union and SGP made last week in an opinion piece in The Telegraph once again express their objections to the law. “This is a fundamental shift in boundaries. A door that is once ajar will swing wide open,” wrote CU faction leader Mirjam Bikker and SGP MP Diederik van Dijk.
“Developments are moving very quickly,” Bikker added on Wednesday. “New frontiers are always emerging, and scientists are curious about what lies behind them.” She also fears that other countries, such as China, will make off with the knowledge acquired in the Netherlands. “How do we prevent this knowledge from leading to non-ethical or commercial applications abroad?”
But according to the initiators, there is absolutely no “slippery slope”. Bevers: “Every time an extension is made, another legislative amendment is required, which requires lengthy parliamentary consideration. Every time our parliament makes a new ethical assessment. So no principled boundaries are being crossed now.”
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