Dr David Shaw asks whether other "non-religious" bioethics organisations exist that offer similar policy positions to those of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (Letters, 12 May).
The majority of national ethics committees in Europe hold similar positions to those of the council. This is reflected in the fact that 34 European countries have ratified, or signed their intention to ratify, the Council of Europe's Convention on Hu
man Rights and Biomedicine, a legal document which the council also supports.
In this context, the UK's continued refusal to sign this convention because it gives too many protective rights in biomedicine only serves to emphasise its international isolation in the field of bioethics.
In addition, I am pleased that Dr Shaw now agrees that everyone in society may become offended by certain actions or behaviours and that this should be taken into account in a serious manner in ethics.
(DR) CALUM MacKELLAR
Director of research, Scottish Council on Human Bioethics
Morningside Road
EdinburghDespite misrepresenting my arguments to some extent, Hugh McLachlan (Letters, 14 May) is obviously right that "some people who agree with some or all of the views of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics are not religiously minded". My point, which is a lot simpler than he makes out, is that the important issue is how the views of the council are arrived at.
Everyone is entitled to their views on embryo research, as Calum MacKellar has said (Letters, 10 May). But when we are debating legal change, arguments must be given for our positions. Simply stating that a new technology is offensive is insufficient reason to prohibit it when this technology might have beneficial effects for millions of people.
The council, and other "non-religious" organisations, such as Comment on Reproductive Ethics, seem to take it as a basic precept that embryos have high moral status. In the absence of explanations for such fundamental positions, it hardly seems "unfair" to speculate as to whether they might be religiously derived.
(DR) DAVID SHAW
University of Glasgow
Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow The full article contains 345 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
