Archbishop Winning chairs 'human life' committee

ARCHBISHOP Thomas Winning of Glasgow is to chair the new joint committee set up by the bishops of Scotland and England and Wales to study bioethical questions and promote Catholic teaching on the value of human life.
The new committee is to have Mgr Michael Connolly of the Catholic Child Welfare Council as its secretary and three other bishops will sit on the committee: Bishop Mario Conti of Aberdeen, Bishop Augustine Harris of Middlesbrough, and Bishop Philip Harvey, Bishop in North London.
The establishment of the committee was announced in the
wake of controversy over new practices concerning in vitro fertilisation — test-tube babies. Lay membership of the committee will be drawn from the medical, nursing, legal and social welfare professions, but the names of all the lay members will not be known until the New Year.
The terms of reference decided at the committee's first meeting at the end of September were "To develop and promote throughout Britain an understanding of the teaching of the Church and its reponse to the medico-moral and legal questions concerning the sanctity of human life."