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European Parliamentarians Support Ban on Primates for Research

No Problem with Killing Human Embryos

By Gudrun Schultz

STRASBOURG, France, April 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A proposed ban on using primates for research experiments in the European Union has received “unprecedented support” from Members of the European Parliament and top EU politicians. MEP support for the ban is ironic, say international pro-life leaders, given the strong EU support for research on human embryos.

Jim Hughes, vice president of International Right to Life, told LifeSiteNews that parliamentarians’ refusal to acknowledge the humanity of the unborn child “boggles the mind.”

“When people become outraged over the treatment of animals and turn a blind eye to the treatment of children before birth--it makes you shake your head and wonder why everyone is asleep on this,” Hughes said. “There are so many of them now who abjectly refuse to acknowledge that the unborn child is a human being.”

“It’s like the drug companies push for the use of human embryos in research when everyone knows the adult stem cells are the only way to go--first of all because they are effective and secondly, and more importantly, it doesn’t involve the taking of an innocent human life.”

Eighty-eight MEPs from parties across the political spectrum backed a new Declaration calling for a ban on the use of Great Apes and wild-caught primates for research, alongside a commitment to phase out all primate use within the EU, according to a report by Animal Defenders International.

The Declaration was launched yesterday on April 24th, designated Lab Animal Day, by the National Anti-Vivisection Society and Animal Defenders International, at a reception in the European Parliament.

A survey conducted in 2006 by the European Commission Survey found that 80 percent of respondents considered primate use in research “not acceptable.”

The EU voted to increase funding for destructive human embryonic stem cell research in July 2006, although objections for eight member countries succeeded in adding an amendment limiting the funding to research that did not involve the direct killing of embryos.

Official sponsors of the Declaration included John Bowis with the UK European People’s Party (Christian Democrats).

To contact MEP John Bowis:
PO Box 262
New Malden
KT3 4WJ.
Tel: 020 8949 2555.
Fax: 020 8395 7463.
E-mail London office
(for London constituency issues/correspondence).

Brussels
ASP 14E 115
European Parliament
Rue Wiertz
1047 BRUSSELS
Belgium.
Tel: 00 32 2284 7780.
Fax: 00 32 2284 9780.
E-mail Brussels office.

See related LifeSiteNews coverage:

EU Embryo Stem Cell Research a "macabre product of a twisted sense of progress": Vatican Newspaper
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06072702.html

Austrian Court to Decide if Chimpanzee is Deserving of “Human Status”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/apr/07040401.html

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