ECLJ Defends Life at the European Parliament

September 08, 2006

(Strasbourg, France)—European Centre for Law and Justice legal counsel Roger Kiska presented on the issue of judicial issues involved in European Union funding of ethically sensitive projects to the European Parliamentary Bioethics Inter-group on Thursday. Mr. Kiska’s remarks focussed on utilizing the E.U. Treaty principle of subsidiarity as the standard of review in which to examine issues involving bioethics and Constitutional questions of life. The talk, to be published by the Inter-group, generated much momentum for the case to be made to challenge the current E.U. regulations funding research involving the necessary destruction of embryos using money from Member States where this research would be criminal. ECLJ will have special meetings with representatives from several such Member States to discuss how to proceed with the matter to the European Court of Justice.

ECLJ will also complete its report on bioethics, genetic therapy and tissue engineering under a new European Commission proposal for the proposal’s rapporteur early next week. The report will be utilized during in-committee debates which culminate with a vote on the proposed legislation on Thursday.

Along the same lines, ECLJ will provide an amicus brief to the Italian courts regarding an application for a patent by an American firm for an innovation using embryonic stem cell research. The brief will be done in conjunction with the office of the Parliamentary Committee Chairperson for women’s equality and gender.

Kiska explained to ECLJ.org that the “matters involved with the current E.U. proposals all involve life at its most vulnerable state. Many Member States already forbid research in these areas and the European Union is impermissibly encroaching on their rights to govern their own systems of morality.”

While it has already been established that the Union is not competent to legislate in areas involving abortion, it has tried to gradually chip away at this competency through these proposals and on the international front by funding abortion services in developing nations and promoting an international right to abortion at the United Nations.