Strasbourg, 14/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - By adopting a resolution on the trade in human ovaries by 307 votes in favour, 199 against, with 25 abstentions, the European Parliament on Thursday reaffirmed its opposition to any form of trade in stem cells and body organs. It wants donor ovaries and body parts to be closely regulated in order to protect donors and those receiving transplants from exploitation. The EP is calling on the Commission to apply the subsidiarity principle to research on embryos and stem cells from embryos, so that Member States where this research is authorised, fund it from their national budgets. The EP considers that “the Union should focus on research on other solutions such as those on somatic or umbilical stem cells, authorised by all Member States and which have already allowed patients to be successfully treated. This text creates the impression that Parliament for the instant (there are no other past examples) is distancing itself from the compromise it had accepted during the adoption of the 6th framework programme on Community funding for research on stem cells from embryos in Member States where this is allowed.
The vote was welcomed by German Christian Democrat Peter Liese, who interprets it as a victory of the subsidiarity principle, much to the consternation of those who would like to see greater freedom in research and/or in trade. These include Belgian Liberal Frédérique Ries, who in a press release attacked the “moralising and retrograde sanctions which threaten Parliament's acceptance of 19 November 2003 for the funding of stem cells from embryos. She said that it sent out a “disastrous” message to couples who were hoping to get a solution to problems of sterility and was a “victory for obscurantism and ignorance”.