The House of Lords has been urged not to rush through laws legalising human embryo clone testing.
The call was led by leading pro-life campaigner, Lord Alton of Liverpool,.
who made an impassioned speech warning of the moral, ethical and legal consequences of giving the go-ahead.
The House of Commons has already given the go-ahead but the Government.
is facing a tough challenge in the Lords.
Around 40 speakers will talk in the debate which centres on a row that.
has set religious leaders against the Government.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has joined forces with the Roman Catholic.
archbishops of Glasgow and Westminster, the Chief Rabbi and the President.
of the Muslim College to protest at the way the Government is changing.
the law.
Lord Alton has tabled an amendment calling for a Lords select committee.
to look at all the issues and report back before the regulations get the.
go-ahead.
Peers will be asked to vote on it later and reject a Government-backed.
amendment proposed by Lord Walton of Detchant, calling for a select committee.
to be set up after the Order has been agreed.
Lord Alton told the House it was surprising that the Government could.
find time for a parliamentary Bill on fox-hunting and yet was stampeding.
through an order with awesome consequences that had not been properly.
discussed.
"The ethical issues raised by this cannot be lightly dismissed," he.
said.
"It does not commend itself to me or many others. When the Minister.
told the House of Commons a pre-14-day-old embryo had the power to facilitate cures to mankind's human misery, it simply underlined to me that we are.
not dealing with something inconsequential," said Lord Alton.
"There is nothing therapeutic in this procedure for the new human embryo.
Once it has been used the human embryo will be destroyed. There's no question here of donor rights or donor consent.
"Since 1990 when miracle cures were promised for 4000 inherited diseases,.
between 300,000 and half a million human embryos have been destroyed or experimented upon.
