British Prime Minister says embryo research is key to life

Gordon Brown today mounts a passionate and personal defence of scientific research using animal-human hybrid embryos as an 'inherently moral endeavour' that could save millions of lives.

Writing in today's Observer, he challenges critics in the churches and elsewhere who condemn what they regard as 'Frankenstein science', arguing that MPs 'owe it to ourselves and future generations to introduce these measures' when they vote on controversial embryology legislation this week.

The Prime Minister's interest in the issue is said by friends to be deeply personal, because his younger son, Fraser, has cystic fibrosis, a condition that could one day benefit from embryo research.

Read full story at The Guardian Observer.