resources, humane work conditions and new types of aid for handicapped people and elderly people. But not everything which is technically possible or economically advantageous is desirable from a human point of view. For us Christian Democrats, technical progress is an ethical, as well as a political and economic requirement and we must find answers together, in a European framework, to the problems posed. We must decide responsibly on the basis of the contemporary state of knowledge, whether a greater risk lies in the use or in the nonapplication of technical novelties. The European People's Party favours three ethical ground rules in research and the application of technology:
  
Respect for human values and the rights of the person from conception until natural death; Responsibility towards Creation; and Responsibility towards future generations.
Respect for Creation obliges us to preserve for today and for future generations the beauty and diversity of nature as an essential basis of human existence. We may not destroy the basis of life for future generations; the application of new technology and our relationships with nature must be undertaken with a sense of our responsibility towards future generations. The value of the human may not be negatively affected by experiments in genetic engineering and the human person may not be reduced to being the object of genetic manipulation.
In another section of their manifesto, which looks at bio-ethics, the Christian Democrats examine the dilemmas posed by artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilisation. Whilst accepting that such procedures can fulfil the life's wish of a childless couple to have much-wanted children, they say that limits must be set: 'All decisions must be based on the good of the child and have respect for human values. The value of life and the right of marriage and the family must be respected.' They say that 'the Christian concept of marriage and the family' means that IVF must not be 'separated from the mutual love and responsibility of parents'. This, and their insistence that the human embryo must be incorporated in a total concept of the protection of life, is once more in stark contrast to the attitudes and positions taken by British legislators who authorised so-called 'virgin births'.