This year the United Kingdom is facing the biggest shake-up on abortion law in years.
The Human Tissue and Embryos Bill is expected to come before Parliament before the end of the year.
It proposes to allow a child’s need for a father to be ignored in considering permission for IVF treatment; to allow, where there is diseased mitochondria in a female egg, for an egg with tissue combined from two women to be fertilised, so that a child would have two mothers and a father; and to permit the cloning of hybrid animal/human embryos for research — something which is forbidden elsewhere in Europe, but which has considerable commercial potential.