Stephen Pollard says that if embryonic stem cell research is banned in some parts of Europe — as it might be under the new EU treaty — old hostilities will resurface
I wouldn’t care to estimate how many words have been written so far on the draft EU reform treaty. If and when it becomes a legal document, the English language will have been near exhausted for new terms to express the fundamental theme of almost every comment — that it is the old constitution in another guise.
But for all the words and all the assertions, almost everyone has ignored one of the most important elements of the treaty — unsurprisingly, given that it’s buried in a footnote.
It’s a truism with EU documents that the devil is in the detail, but truisms are called that because they are, well, true. And few people seem to have realised the profound importance of footnote 18 to the proposed draft wording for a replacement of Article 6 on fundamental rights.
If you’re lost after that last sentence already, that’s probably why no one else has noticed it. But here it is. It’s termed a ‘Unilateral Declaration by Poland’: ‘The Charter does not affect in any way the right of Member States to legislate in the sphere of public morality, family law as well as the protection of human dignity and respect for human physical and moral integrity.’
Seems a bit obscure? It isn’t. It goes to the heart of EU society and presages — within the next decade — a revived social division across the EU based on religion. Because ‘…the protection of human dignity and respect for human physical and moral integrity’ is EU-speak for bans on new medical areas such as embryonic stem cell research, gene therapy and even the latest breakthrough, RNA (ribonucleic acid).
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