When one wants to talk morality, families and science, one seeks out The Independent:

Ground-breaking new laws permitting the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for research passed a crucial vote in the Commons … after attempts to ban the technique were overwhelmingly rejected…

That was the day before yesterday. It addressed a narrow battle over science. And one can appreciate the arguments in favor of the need for solid scientific inquiry — without which, of course, we would have no modern medicine.

So within carefully controlled environments giving the go ahead to that is not unreasonable.

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These next, though, are apt to be practiced more generally. They also fall more clearly into the realm of political policy than behind lab doors, scientific research. Once again, The Independent:

Abortions will remain legal for up to 24 weeks into pregnancy after MPs rejected a series of attempts to cut the limit after an impassioned debate in the House of Commons…

…David Cameron, the Tory leader, supported 20- and 22-week limits. But Gordon Brown and much of his Cabinet favoured retaining the current 24-week maximum.

Campaigners for a lower limit argued that foetuses were becoming viable at earlier stages of pregnancy and protested that most other European countries banned abortions at such a late stage. Opponents of the move insisted that only a tiny minority of terminations took place after 20 weeks and then mainly on medical grounds. They also maintained that attempts to reduce the limit were the “cynical” opening shots of an attack against abortion in general…

This being reported in the Independent, it may be worth noting also that legal abortion is NOT required by the European Union. However, in practical terms once made legal an EU state moving to ban it is close to impossible. Therefore, being in the EU is clearly a “benefit” in the “pro-choice” sense.

So moving to lower the limit to that practiced elsewhere on the continent is perfectly permissible. Claiming it is a “cynical” move on the slippery slope of an outright ban is itself a cynical statement, given what we know of EU membership. Nor does the Independent, cynically, have anything to say in this case about others in Europe showing Britain the way. Curious that.

…Four lower limits were put to MPs in a series of votes. They first threw out a call to bring in a 12-week maximum by 393 votes to 71, a majority of 322.

Supporters of this limit included three Roman Catholic cabinet ministers – Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary…

The singling out of Roman Catholics amongst a sea of other Christians (at least Christians in name) is always intriguing. Are not other Christian denominations opposed to abortion? Or are the likes of Gordon Brown’s Presbyterians and David Cameron’s Anglicans thrilled by it?

As regular readers know, the Independent also spends a great deal of time ruminating on Islam in British society. So, how about Muslim MPs? How’d Shahid Malik, Sadiq Khan, Mohammad Sarwar and Khalid Mahmood all vote?

Apparently, the Independent couldn’t find the space for examples of the votes of those non-Christian members, or others by their religious groupings.

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Lastly, perhaps even most forward-thinking of all:

Single women and lesbian couples will be able to seek fertility treatment without having to consider a father for their children under new laws approved by MPs last night…

Excellent. According to all the members who endorsed this, children can be produced by IVF without any consideration of a father whatsoever. No mention again of Muslim MPs’ stance, or any religion for that matter. But in this case that’s wholly understandable: for if fathers aren’t necessary, what need is there to bring up other similarly false idols?

Yet shouldn’t that acceptance of a “fatherless future” be put into practice in policy generally? Because “fatherless” will have to apply to all realms for a child, given that when there isn’t a father, there’s NEVER one. Sadly, that that non-need might well extend to ALL areas of life — that, say, chasing a sperm donor for child support is obviously now no longer necessary — went, unfortunately, unaddressed.

So there’s always more to legislate — or, as one might expect, conveniently to choose to two-faced fail to. (Demanding a father is discriminatory…uhh, hey, you, father, where’s your child support?!) And if through increasing “fatherless” IVF we may well also find decades from now we have thousands of brothers and sisters out there who don’t know they are related? Such concerns are undoubtedly just “reactionary” as well, and foolishly voicing them merely betrays one’s ignorant fears of “the 21st century”:

…Labour … Emily Thornberry, the MP for Islington South and Finsbury, warned: “I always worry when people start saying they are only applying common sense, because so often common sense is a cover for discrimination, narrowness and an inability to face the 21st-century.”…

Interestingly, Ms Thornberry is MP for an area that is one of the poorer parts of north London, as well as one of the more “progressive” in others. She has lots to say about single parenting, having been raised by a single mother herself, as she tells us in her local paper, the Islington Tribune:

…“My late mother brought up three children on her own, and she coped by making sure she had friends who supported not only her but us, and who provided male role models, where necessary, for my brothers and me…

And we can see how accomplished she has turned out. An MP and no father in sight. In fact, Ms Thornberry seems quite proud of her area’s single parent place in the “league tables”:

“I speak as the representative of Islington, where there are 3,640 single parents. If there was a league table of single parents with dependent children – Islington would be in the top 20.

Yes, Labour members do love league tables, don’t they? Obviously, single parentage is not merely a matter of “coping”; if not a positive it is clearly not a negative, and in some ways something of which to be quite proud. But perhaps of even greater importance:

“In Islington, there are a great many gay marriages – there is at least one gay marriage a day – and a very large number of gay people in my constituency now live together in legally recognised, loving relationships.

Ms Thornberry, MP, doesn’t know that there is no such thing as “gay marriage” in Britain. Or in her own constituency, for that matter. There are “civil partnerships”, though.

“It is the experience of my constituents that heterosexual couples do not have a monopoly on good parenting. If gay people are appropriate adoptive parents, they cannot have children of their own.”

Such is the state of sex education in Britain that Ms Thornberry has reached MP and apparently also does not quite grasp that gay couples cannot conceive children “of their own“. That because creating children (discriminatorily, we know) requires heterosexual activity below a certain age grouping (also discriminatorily, we know), or a male and female contribution in IVF combination (yes, romance is indeed not dead, in this 21st century).

However, if this blogger is mistaken and she does actually realize that, evidently considering those facts is also backwards, and not 21st century thinking either, of course.

…“If we maintain ‘the need for a father’ we continue to discriminate against single women and lesbians who want to be mothers. Hundreds of children of lesbian parents will be denied the opportunity to have a second loving ­parent at the heart of their family.”…

And as to policy worries over children without fathers (lack of role models, crime, etc.), as Ms Thornberry happily confirms they are unfounded. What a relief that we no longer have to listen to the whinging: single mothers had best just get on with it, and leave the rest of us be. My conscience, for one, is now clear, for Ms Thornberry has enlightened us, and brought us all into the 21st century.

Indeed, what we also do know now is that, given her own routine-sounding, “raised by single-mother” life experience, the number of future MPs currently being reared in her constituency is, in years to come, likely to absolutely dazzle us all.