Dear Editor, I commend the Catholic Church for condemning Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which approves the creation of human-animal embryos (Bishop of Lichfield attacks embryo hybrid plan, Post March 24). The bill seeks to blur the distinction between humans and animals and allows for the creation of human embryos that are destined to be destroyed when stem cells are extracted from them.
On a biological level the pre-natal being is not like any other tissue: it is human with its own DNA indicating that, as a human, it has the same fundamental and moral right to life as any other human being.
Human welfare does not demand that scientists pursue every avenue available. On the contrary, human welfare depends upon a shared responsibility that involves moral limits. The respect for every human life, for example, is an essential condition if a societal life worthy of the name is to be possible.
When man's conscience loses respect for life as something sacred, he inevitably ends by losing his own identity.
Amazingly, though embryonic stem cell experiments have failed to produce a single, unqualified, therapeutic success, even in animal models, supporters of the embryonic model continue to laud their unproven and currently unethical methods and ignore the fact that adult stem cell therapies are being used extensively today in treating diseases.
We must help those who are suffering, but we may not use a good end to justify an evil means. Human beings are not raw materials to be exploited or commodities that can be bought and sold. To suggest otherwise is to endorse a macabre interpretation of progress. Any method of genetic manipulation that involves the alteration or destruction of human embryos is nothing more than Frankenstein science.
PAUL KOKOSKI
By email
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Biofuels and poverty
Dear Editor, In a recent comment about biofuels you asked "Has the Government really thought things through with regards to climate change?" It is clear in this instance it hasn't (Green Rush, Post Agenda, March 25).
Made from plant products, bio-fuels have been championed for their potential to help tackle climate change and the Government is pushing through a bill for compulsory use. If produced sustainably, biofuels have the potential to play a role in reducing carbon emissions and offering new livelihoods opportunities for poor people living in developing countries.
However, the lack of provisions in the Government's forthcoming Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) means that people living in poverty will suffer.
There is mounting evidence that biofuels are deepening poverty as some of the world's poorest people are pushed from their lands and subjected to labour exploitation. Food staples such as corn and wheat will be forced to compete for land and water with biofuels crops threatening food security and sending food prices soaring.
To make things worse, rather than reducing emissions, clearing land for growing bio-fuels actually releases massive amounts of CO2 as trees are chopped down and soil ploughed up.
From April 15, we will have no choice but to use biofuels if the UK Government proceeds with new laws.
The Government must ensure that sustainability standards are in place in the UK and EU so that biofuels do not make poor people and the environment suffer.
It is vital we send an urgent message to Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Transport, telling her to introduce standards which ensure bio-fuels do not make poor people and the environment suffer.
MAYA SEGAS
Oxfam
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Giving more support to our pensions
Dear Editor, We campaign for Armed Forces Veterans who served as regular volunteers between 1949 and April 5,1975, but lost their pension entitlement (to which they'd contributed) because they didn't or couldn't complete 22 years service.
Political support is led by Colin Challen, MP for Morley and Rothwell, and is cross-party. At least three eligible West Midland MPs have signed the earlier, and the current Early Day Motions in support of our cause.
We have many members in the West Midlands area and hope to see some of them on the rally on April 3. Parts of Whitehall will be closed-off for us and we will lay wreaths at the Cenotaph in memory of our colleagues and all the 16,000 servicemen and women who've been killed on duty since 1949.
Please support us. Add to our 117,000 petition signatures; write to your MP; join our rally - get a Fun Fare from National Express and be in Whitehall Place at 1pm.
BARBARA GREEN
Armed Forces Pension Group
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Destroying good homes
Dear Editor, Ken Meeson may have commendable, if grandiose, plans for North Solihull, but he may find that in a few years the Olton-Solihull borderland, home to professionals and middle management, may be converted into a future area which itself will need regeneration.
This is because a large number of perfectly good between-the-wars homes are being knocked down and their gardens destroyed to build flats, and occasionally smaller properties, leaving not enough garden space to grow a dandelion.
This is particularly the case in Warwick Rd, Dovehouse Lane, Grange Road junction and adjacent roads where, in spite of the Solihull council rejecting builders' applications, the inspectorate, based in Bristol, has merely over-ridden the council in at least three cases. It has also forced the council to pay the builders' costs - in one case £50,000. The area is rapidly losing its characteristics, and will soon become a concrete jungle.
In one place 55 flats for senior citizens are near completion. There are only seven car-parking places. The comment of the inspector was: "They can use the service road in front of the shops for parking." This parade is often nearly full, and in shopping hours there is a one hour parking limit. I estimate that at least 25 car parking places should have been allowed in the construction of these flats (preferably at least 10 more), but that would have left less profit for the builders. The inspector who permitted this construction should be sacked.
The odds are against councils who wish to keep the green characteristics of an area. The rules should be amended so that prospective builders pay their own costs irrespective of the result of an application.
Councils should have the right to appeal to the courts, at least regarding costs, and preferably for reconsideration if an inspector overrides a council. Perhaps the MPs of the area might take this up.
HENRY WARSON
Solihull
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An interesting clarification
Dear Editor, As a follow-up to your headline on March 19, which read "Whitby: library WILL go", I wrote to you querying whether he was "totally uninterested in what Birmingham citizens think". You changed this by substituting "disinterested" for "uninterested", thereby destroying its meaning completely, as anyone familiar with the English language will know.
Perhaps I can remind you that Sir Ernest Gowers said in The Complete Plain Words: "Disinterested means 'unbiased by personal interest' (O.E.D.). It is sometimes wrongly used for uninterested (ie not interested).
A public man dealing with public business can never be 'charged' with being disinterested, as if it were a crime. It is his elementary duty always to be so."
I should be glad if you could make it clear that I am not writing as a member of Friends of the Central Library: I write as a private individual and might add that I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party.
STANLEY HOLLAND
Bournville ..SUPL:
