Heather Bellamy spoke with Josephine Quintavalle from Comment on Reproductive Ethics about the recent historic debate at the EU Parliament

Josephine Quintavalle

Supporters of Christian Concern and Comment on Reproductive Ethics have been instrumental in helping the One of Us petition gather two million supporters across Europe and recently force an historic debate at the EU Parliament regarding the equal protection of every human being from the moment of conception onwards. Heather Bellamy spoke with Josephine Quintavalle from Comment on Reproductive Ethics to find out more.

Heather: Josephine, why was the recent hearing historic?

Josephine: Because it's the first time that we've been able to create a network across the member countries of the European Union to do something together, so it's been a very important initiative for the purpose of the initiative itself, but also the sense that now we've got so many friends in so many countries with whom we can interrelate and do campaigns together.

Heather: Could you outline the problem that you're trying to address with this coalition of people across Europe?

Josephine: The issue that's at stake here is very much based on the absolute right to life of the human embryo. When does human life begin? When does full protection for human life start? And so the One of Us campaign was based on the very obvious, but often forgotten, fact that human life does begin at the moment of conception. The focus of the One of Us campaign was the human embryo. The human embryo is one of us: tiny, wonderful, extraordinary, and unique; every single human embryo is the beginning of a unique human life. You can imagine how much it took to organise such a campaign, it was extraordinary: you had language difficulties, communication difficulties in general, but to find this huge response from so many countries was very exhilarating.

Heather: How do Europe treat the embryo, that this is even needed in the first place? Is there research happening on the embryo? What are the problems that you're addressing?

Josephine: Without a shadow of a doubt, the United Kingdom's got some of the most liberal legislation in relationship to the human embryo. We do allow destructive research. The human embryos supposed to have a special status in UK law, which means for the first twelve days of its life it has a special status, but in effect, you can do absolutely anything you like to the human embryo: all manner of horrifying experimentation is going on in our country. Whereas across Europe there'll be different positions taken on it. What this One of Us campaign cannot do is it cannot stop embryo experimentation. It was based on a financial perspective of saying, 'No European funding should be allowed to be used for destructive research' because it offends against many citizens of the member states of the European Union: this was what the principle of the campaign was about. We'd love to have a campaign to stop experimentation on the human embryo, but this was basically stopping money being directed towards destructive experimentation. However, it was a great opportunity to underline and focus on this glorious reality, that we begin life in such tiny form - but that's where we all started and that from that moment on we deserve full protection.

Heather: How do you feel the debate went?

Josephine: I think at the beginning, when we first started, one wondered whether we'd ever get there - and certainly the United Kingdom was not one of the best supporters of this. It was quite difficult to get the United Kingdom to get its act together. We did get around 28,000 signatures from here, but I know, in a country like Italy, they collected 600,000, so it was quite difficult. I think this is an issue because the United Kingdom's not always very European-orientated and possibly didn't quite get the message about what this was all about. However, we all pulled together and the number of signatures that were collected is magnificent. We now have to translate that energy and that collaboration into more pro-life activities across the European Union as well.

Heather: I believe you hit some problems going into the debate, didn't you, with your opponents?

Josephine: Yes: it did end up, inevitably, with a great deal of battle about sexual rights and abortion, etc. But the focus of the One of Us campaign was originally focused on the human embryo: no money, communal money, could be given to destructive research on the human embryo. It came out of a judgement from a German legal battle that went on at some stage, when there was a German scientist who was trying to patent the research that he was doing on the human embryo. In Germany, the Greenpeace organisation, which includes the human as well as the animal in its objective - Greenpeace in Germany challenged this German scientist who wanted to patent the human embryo and this was the genesis of this whole One of Us campaign. The judgement came from the European Court of Human Justice that the human embryo cannot be patented and therefore we followed on by saying: 'And no money can be used to do destructive research'. We can't stop, sadly, experimentation on the human embryo, but if you can dry up the funding then people are more likely to look for alternatives that are more acceptable.

Heather: So do you think the money will stop being used for that? Is that the outcome of the debate?

Josephine: Well, we need to see where it goes: it's still got to go further. What we did, in presenting this in Europe, was to present the petition, but we need to hear what the commissioner's response is to it. But as I say, it's all of immense value to the pro-life movement because of having created these wonderful networks with friends in so many countries. You know, I can immediately get in touch with anybody in Portugal, in Romania, in France: we've got all these new great friends and I think working together is a very good way forward.