Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology / Chairman: Dame Mary Warnock, DBE.

Great Britain. Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology.

Date:: 1984

Credit: Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology / Chairman: Dame Mary Warnock, DBE. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Found on image 12 / 116 (page 2)…is nobody wants. 6. In recognising that there should be limits, people are bear- ing witness to the existence of a moral ideal of society. But in our pluralistic society it is not to be expected that any one set of principles can be enunciated to be completely accepted by everyone. This is not to say that the ...
Found on image 15 / 116 (page 5)…eact to the ways in which people now see childlessness and the process of family formation, taking into account the range of views encompassed by our pluralistic society, the nature and value of clinical and scientific advances and the benefits of research. Methods of working 1.6 We found it convenient to divi...

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detail. This has been a further reason for basing our views on argument rather than sentiment, though we have necessarily been mindful of the truth that matters of ultimate value are not susceptible of proof. 4. A strict utilitarian would suppose that, given certain pro- cedures, it would be possible to calculate their benefits and their costs. Future advantages, therapeutic or scientific, should be weighed against present and future harm. However, even if such a calculation were possible, it could not provide a final or verifiable answer to the question whether it 1s right that such procedures should be carried out. There would still remain the possibility that they were unacceptable, whatever their long- term benefits were supposed to be. Moral questions, such as those with which we have been concerned are, by definition, questions that involve not only a calculation of consequences, but also strong sentiments with regard to the nature of the proposed activities themselves. 5. We were therefore bound to take very seriously the feel- ings expressed in the evidence. And, as we have said, it would be idle to pretend that there is not a wide diversity in moral feelings, whether these arise from religious, philosophical or humanist beliefs. What is common (and this too we have dis- covered from the evidence) is that people generally want some principles or other to govern the development and use of the new techniques. There must be some barriers that are not to be crossed, some limits fixed, beyond which people must not be allowed to go. Nor is such a wish for containment a mere whim or fancy. The very existence of morality depends on it. A society which had no inhibiting limits, especially in the areas with which we have been concerned, questions of birth and death, of the setting up of families, and the valuing of human life, would be a society without moral scruples. And this nobody wants. 6. In recognising that there should be limits, people are bear- ing witness to the existence of a moral ideal of society. But in our pluralistic society it is not to be expected that any one set of principles can be enunciated to be completely accepted by everyone. This is not to say that the enunciating of principles is arbitrary, or that there is no shared morality whatever. The law itself, binding on everyone in society, whatever their beliefs,

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Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology / Chairman: Dame Mary Warnock, DBE.

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