Excellent news! The Commons has voted in support of research on hybrid embryos. Needless to say, the uninformed are up in arms about the “army of Frankesteins” about to be unleashed, but I think everyone who understands the issues knows this is the right outcome.

So, the votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill are taking place over the next couple of days, with the big one – hybrid embryos – happening today.

The BBC has summarised the key points on both sides of the debate:

What are the arguments in favour of this process?

Scientists who advocate the work say the cells would allow them to study how genetic defects, which cause diseases such as Parkinson’s, develop.

They also say that stem cells’ ability to develop into different tissues mean it could be possible to use cells formed in this process to cure diseases.

Using animal eggs would enable scientists to overcome the problem that human eggs are in short supply.

What are the arguments against?

Opponents say it is tampering with nature, and is unethical.

On the one hand we have a set of reasoned arguments detailing specific predicted health benefits for thousands of people, and on the other we have “eewwww!”.

I really wish people would stop conflating their own squeamishness with their ethical position; it clouds important issues, like this, where the ethical position is surely the one that saves lives.

Oh look, Church leaders are up in arms about some new piece of legislation. Are we really surprised? After so many thousands of years of them proclaiming that anything which makes them, personally, feel uncomfortable is evil, how can we be anything but bored when they keep at it in the present time? Last year it was equal rights for homosexuals, this year it’s advanced research into human genetics. Before long it’ll be artificial intelligence, neuroscience, or some other thing which challenges, and advances, our view of ourselves.

Oh, and of course the cries are going to be led by the Catholic Church this time; they’re the ones with a huge theological investment in the subject. We’re talking about a cult whose insane superstitions about human genetic material lead them to declare male masturbation a “sin against God”, and to deduce that tens of millions of people in the third world dying of AIDS and hundreds of millions more living in miserable, starving poverty due to overpopulation is probably OK compared to the much greater sin of letting them use condoms. These are people whose core values are utterly incompatible with the human rights and human dignity they claim to be the guardians of, and our response to their claims of being some sort of authority on ethics (especially bioethics) should be to laugh disdainfully and get on with trying to make the world a better place.