WASHINGTON (BP)--Members of the British Parliament have handily defeated attempts to block the legalization of human-animal hybrids and "savior siblings" in a series of votes that left pro-life advocates aghast.

Acting May 19 and 20, the House of Commons also rejected efforts to lower the time limit for most abortions from 24 weeks and turned back an effort to prevent fertility clinics from providing their services to lesbian couples and single women without restriction.

The votes served as victories for the Labour Party-controlled government, which backed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Here are the vote totals on amendments to the legislation, according to Parliament's website and news reports:

-- 336-176 against banning the creation of hybrid embryos by placing a human nucleus in an animal egg;

-- 286-223 against prohibiting the creation of hybrid embryos by using human sperm to fertilize an animal egg, or the reverse;

-- 342-163 against barring the creation of "savior siblings" in order to provide treatment to ill relatives who are a genetic match. With this method, embryos are screened to determine if they are a match to the relative, and the ones that are are then placed in the mother's womb, where if successful they will implant. The additional embryos often are destroyed.

-- 292-217 and 290-222 against amendments to maintain a requirement that in vitro fertilization clinics contemplate a child's need for a father before providing services;

-- 304-233 against reducing the upper limit at which women may have abortions from 24 to 22 weeks;

-- 332-190 against lowering the limit to 20 weeks;

-- 387-84 against cutting the limit to 16 weeks;

-- 393-71 against reducing the limit to 12 weeks.

Southern Baptist bioethicist C. Ben Mitchell decried the actions.

"The irony is that while some MPs are trying to roll back the legal limit on abortions, others have been working hard to permit the destruction of human embryos in research. It's nothing less than political schizophrenia," said Mitchell, director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in suburban Chicago and a consultant to the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Human-animal hybrid embryos are created to produce stem cells for research into treating numerous afflictions. Researchers typically permit them to mature to six days of age before extracting stem cells for experimentation. The removal of stem cells kills the embryo.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) announced in January it had approved licenses for two groups of scientists to create human-animal hybrids for research.

Scientists at Newcastle University announced April 1 they had created cytoplasmic hybrids, or "cybrids," by placing human nuclei into empty cow eggs. The "cybrids," were described as 99.9 percent human. There is a ban on permitting the embryos to grow beyond 14 days or to implant them in the womb of a human being or animal, according to The Times of London.

"The U.K. continues to maintain its infamous lead in promiscuous, embryo-destructive research," Mitchell said. "Permission to create human-animal hybrids should not be a surprise from the culture that gave us the Frankenstein story. The HFEA's technological hubris clearly exceeded its ethical grasp."

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said the votes showed the government had "unleashed the hounds of biomedical and cultural revolution."

Of the vote to give lesbian couples the same access to fertility treatments as heterosexual couples, Mohler wrote May 21 on his weblog, "The subversion of the role of fathers is nothing new and this British move is just another monumental loss for children. Our societies are straining under the weight of father absence and unfaithful or disengaged fathers."

Legislation to ban the creation of human-animal hybrids in the United States has been introduced in Congress but has made no progress. Sens. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., and Mary Landrieu, D.-La., are sponsoring the Human-animal Hybrid Prohibition Act in the Senate, while Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., is the author of a companion bill in the House of Representatives.

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