'British Eugenics Society' Publish 'An Introduction to Stem Cells'

Prof Steve Jones: A hybrid of Mengele and Dawkins

These are exciting times to be a geneticist. These are exciting times, too, of course, in which to be a eugenicist, since new developments in the former give rise to new 'opportunities' in the latter.

It appears that the two schools of thought merge together quite neatly in the person of Professor Steve Jones, President of the Galton Institute and until June 2010, Head of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London.

Professor Steve Jones joins many other 'evolutionary visionaries' who have a large and vested interest in the field of human embryology. Professor Jones was, as you may remember, one of those signatories of the 'protest the Pope' letter in The Guardian. I guess Dignitas Personae didn't go down too well with Professor Jones. Nearly all of the signatories of that letter had an explicit agenda which was largely at odds with the Teaching of the Catholic Church.

Anyway, 'The Galton Institute', known seemingly quite unashamably as the British Eugenics Society until 1990, has produced a helpful guide for its members and those with an unhealthy interest in eugenics entitled, An Introduction to Stem Cells. They've produced the guide with the help of the eerily titled 'Progress Educational Trust' who boast of their organisation as one, 'informing debate on assisted conception and genetics', as if, somehow, these two subject matters should be routinely debated hand-in-hand and in the same breath.

What is starting to freak me out is that so many of these 'institutes', 'funds', 'trusts', 'foundations' and 'Royal Societies' are all such great friends. It is almost as if there is like a network of organisations with an interest in eugenics at work in all levels of Government, society, academia, medicine, social services, health services and pharmaceutical firms.

The new guide to stem cells, which does not just focus on adult stem cells (to which the Church has no moral objection) but goes into the grim detail of embryonic research states in the introduction, with no apparent hint of irony...

'...despite the excitement surrounding stem cells, this area of medicine is still in its infancy.'

According to the guide...

'Most of the ES (Embryonic stem) cells grown so far have been obtained from spare embryos donated by couples who have undergone in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment.'

In other words, the IVF industry is feeding the embryology industry its embryos. I suppose that is why we have the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. That kind of makes sense, even though it is freakishly grotesque. I mean, where better to get your human embryos than from the IVF bank of spare unwanted human beings in freezers. The key words in this sentence is 'Most of...'. I mean, where are the rest coming from if not all are supplied by the IVF industry?

The Progress Educational Trust meanwhile, who seem to be very good friends with the team of Nazis formerly known as the British Eugenics Society are to have an evening debate on the 20th October 2010, entitled 'Paying Egg Donors: A Child At Any Price?'.

'...In partnership with the Royal Society of Medicine, supported by the British Fertility Society and the National Gamete Donation Trust.'

The Progress Educational Trust's 'website redevelopment is supported by Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health', so clearly links with the Government are pretty healthy. PET also produce BioNews, a free weekly news service 'on genetics, assisted conception, embryo/stem cell research and related areas.'

The 'Patron' of Progress Educational Trust is one Baronness Mary Warnock, who 'from 1982 to 1984 she chaired an inquiry into human fertilisation, the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology, whose final report is often called the Warnock report, is famous for such gems as...

"If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives – your family's lives – and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service."

Charming lady...The BioNews service is worth checking out if you are a pro-life campaigner. In June 2010, for instance, the BioNews website told interested parties that...

The UK's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has released a Working Party report, Termination of Pregnancy for Fetal Abnormality. The peer-reviewed report updates the previous report published in 1996 and reviewed relevant international scientific studies going back to 1990.

The report found that it was not 'realistic' to seek to produce a definitive list of conditions that constitute 'serious handicap' for clinicians to use in interpreting the legal grounds for abortion under the 1967 Abortion Act. The Working party found this problematic since 'accurate diagnostic techniques are as yet unavailable. Likewise, the consequences of abnormality are difficult to predict'. Under the 1967 Abortion Act, a 'substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped' forms a ground for legal abortion with no gestational time limit in England, Wales and Scotland [1].

The report also recommended that the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme becomes centrally linked, so that the outcome of pregnancies with specific congenital abnormalities can be monitored over time.

Anyway, where am I going with all of this? Ah yes, well, it is pretty clear that with a man of the academic stature and enormous popularity within his field as Professor Steve Jones at its helm, the Galton Institute (British Eugenics Society) has its finger in many pies and that it associates with powerful institutions on a worldwide basis. The deep and burning obsession with the Galton Institute is now genetics and the possibilities in the field. Of course, they are interested in finding a cure for cancer and the rest, but, more than that, the Galton Institute is deeply embedded, rooted if you like in its own history, its family tree, which is steeped in social Darwinism.

Professor Steve Jones is the modern, acceptable face of the eugenics movement which got some really terrible PR between 1940 and 1945 and has taken some time to recover and get the show back on the road, and, on the road, that show most definitely is. That road, however, will lead this country to terrible ruin. That road will lead this country into Nazism and the Government do not seem to be saying 'No' to their wishes. What the Galton Institute is interested in is the steady elimination of the 'unfit'. It is not just concerned with building a future free from 'disease' and in curing disease, it is concerned chiefly with a future in which only those with a strong genetic gene pool, or, 'good stock' as they might call it, will be living. Theirs is truly a 'Kingdom of this world'.

This is one reason why my ears pricked up when I heard that Jeremy Hunt MP said words to the effect that the State could not afford to 'pay' for children in families that could not 'afford' them. The unfortunate inference is that people living on benefit, who are routinely described as 'feckless' and 'scum' on Daily Mail and Telegraph blog comments should not breed. I am very surprised that no other blogger, such as the Catholic, Ed West of The Telegraph, have picked up on the strikingly eugenic connotations of what Mr Hunt said.

The word eugenic basically means 'good birth'. In the Catholic Church we do not believe in such a thing as a 'bad birth'. We can certainly have a 'bad death' and die outside of the Church and without the Sacraments of God, but we believe that every human being is made 'in the image and likeness of God', created by Him for 'some definite purpose', and ultimately, for the Beatific Vision of God. The vision of the Galton Institute, of Professor Steve Jones, of those that support it and of those that it supports, is, on the other hand, the vision of Hell itself.