Correspondent Europe: Our Genes Tx Date: 6th May 2000 This script was made from audio tape - any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible 00.00.00 Opening Music 00.00.09 Aston EDWARD STOURTON Europe is at the heart of perhaps the greatest adventure of the twenty-first century - genetics - the search for the secrets of life. Both the scientists who decide what can be done and the priests and politicians who decide what should be done are looking to the past to provide a map for the future. And Europe's history is a rich resource. 00.00.27 Edward Stourton Here in Norway we report on the legacy of its most searing lesson. 00.00.31 Music 00.00.32 Edward Stourton These children were part of the Nazi attempt to create a master race. 00.00.38 Edward Stourton In Sardinia parish records hundreds of years old are showing the way to scientists in the vanguard of genetic research. 00.00.45 Edward Stourton And in the shadow of the Vatican Europe's oldest mother questions the time honoured teachings of the church. She says sometimes when man plays God, it works. 00.00.55 Rosanna della Corte Voice over I wanted to go to the Pope and talk to him. I wanted to bring Riccardo to him and say; you're against this but look at the treasure I've made. 00.01.06 Title Page OUR GENES 00.01.09 Edward Stourton The Nazi pursuit of a master race changed our ideas about the use of science forever. Biology seems to open up new possibilities almost daily. But that terrible chapter of twentieth century history still haunts us and even now we perhaps don't fully understand all its lessons. 00.01.25 Edward Stourton There's a group of people in Norway, children of the Nazi experiment in eugenics, who've only recently begun to talk freely and openly about their experiences. 00.01.34 Edward Stourton And as Isobel Hilton reports they've lost something that most of us take for granted - a sense of who they really are. 00.01.51 Isobel Hilton This fortified bunker on a Norwegian cliff is a physical reminder of five years of German wartime occupation. 00.01.59 Isobel Hilton This man is part of the human legacy of that occupation. For him this bunker triggers painful and confusing questions. 00.02.07 Air raid siren 00.02.16 Isobel Hilton The horror of the holocaust extermination camps was only one side of Nazi policies on eugenics and race. The other was Heinrich Himmler's plan to repopulate the world with a master race of Aryans - bred to eliminate genetic defects. 00.02.33 Isobel Hilton Norwegian women were seen as fine Aryan mothers. German occupying forces were encouraged to fraternise. 00.02.41 Isobel Hilton More than half a century later the children that resulted are still paying the price. 00.02.46 Music 00.02.49 Isobel Hilton Some twelve thousand children were fathered by German soldiers during the occupation. Werner Thiermann was one of them. 00.02.56 Werner Thiermann I am the result of a relationship between a Norwegian woman and a German soldier. 00.03.02 Music 00.03.06 Isobel Hilton For years the truth was kept from him. For Werner adult life has been a journey into the past. 00.03.13 Werner Thiermann For me personally it were very important to find out where my roots were because everybody else had a father and mother and family and I didn't think I should be much different. 00.03.31 Isobel Hilton The Third Reich wanted children like Werner. They were part of the Lebensborn programme - the fountain of life. 00.03.38 Isobel Hilton Most were separated from their mothers after birth and kept in special homes to be raised as the conqueror's racial elite. 00.03.45 Music 00.03.51 Isobel Hilton But after the war came the vengeance. Nobody wanted them. 00.03.55 Isobel Hilton Their mothers were called traitors and whores. Werner grew up knowing only that his father was German. 00.04.03 Isobel Hilton So when did you first get hold of a copy of your birth certificate? How did you get that? 00.04.08 Werner Thiermann I got that in the late eighties. 00.04.12 Isobel Hilton As an adult he began a difficult search for the truth. The Nazis classified everyone by race. Aryan Norwegians were highly prized. 00.04.22 Isobel Hilton This number, twelve forty two, it appears on all the documents - what does that mean? 00.04.27 Werner Thiermann Well that's my Lebensborn number. And as you will notice there is also a one in front. That means that I was classified as a true Aryan. 00.04.38 Isobel Hilton So that, so that you're first class Aryan. Is that what the one means? 00.04.42 Werner Thiermann Well, according to the documents, I am. 00.04.46 Isobel Hilton And this is a photograph of your mother I take it. 00.04.49 Werner Thiermann Yes, it is. 00.04.51 Isobel Hilton And do you know when this was taken? 00.04.53 Werner Thiermann No, I'm not quite sure but I think it..... 00.04.55 Isobel Hilton Werner's mother worked for the Germans throughout. 00.04.59 Isobel Hilton But though Norway was relatively peaceful during the war, the occupation was bitterly resented and most Norwegians frowned on the women who did strike up relationships with German soldiers, like Werner's father. 00.05.18 Isobel Hilton There was official hostility too. The government in exile, broadcasting through the BBC, warned of the consequences. 00.05.26 Norwegian broadcast 00.05.30 Isobel Hilton Both prostitutes and ordinary women should realise, they warned, that things would grow unpleasant for them when the Germans left Norway. 00.05.40 Norwegian broadcast Subtitles We have previously issued a warning... and we repeat it here... of the price these women will pay... for the rest of their lives. They will be held in contempt by all Norwegians... for their lack of restraint. 00.06.06 Isobel Hilton And they were. At the end of the war thousands were rounded up and jailed. Young children like Werner were persecuted as symbols of Norway's humiliation - prey to all kinds of abuse. 00.06.18 Werner Thiermann With the Germans going away they all had to put their hate over to somebody else. 00.06.26 Isobel Hilton Did you understand any of that? 00.06.28 Werner Thiermann No, but we weren't so very old before we start to wondering why. I mean when they start calling us German, half-cast and all this. I mean we didn't, well I didn't really understand why but I knew it must be something. 00.06.49 Isobel Hilton So what sort of thing did the adults do? 00.06.52 Werner Thiermann Well, like sexual abuse, urinating on and making sure that you got to understand that you are nothing, that you are nobody. 00.07.07 Isobel Hilton So the teachers didn't do anything to protect you then? 00.07.10 Werner Thiermann No, they were the author of it. 00.07.15 Isobel Hilton Werner was a helpless and uncomprehending outcast in the series of children's homes in which he grew up. The years of physical and sexual abuse by the adults who were supposed to care for him have left him bitter against his fellow countrymen and against his mother. 00.07.37 Isobel Hilton Paul Hansen was born in 1942 in a Nazi clinic in Norway. Also a Lebensborn child, the product of his mother's brief affair with a Luftwaffe pilot, whom Paul never knew. 00.07.50 Isobel Hilton He never got much schooling and now he works as a cleaner in the Oslo Physics Institute. The lack of education though was only one of his troubles. 00.08.03 Paul Hansen Voice over I had a very turbulent youth. When I was about sixteen I tried to take my own life by cutting my wrists. I had reached a dead end. 00.08.14 Music 00.08.24 Isobel Hilton In his infancy, while the war was still on, Paul was one of the privileged children who lived in a special Lebensborn home, destined to be brought up as loyal citizens of the Third Reich. 00.08.37 Isobel Hilton Even there though his memories are not happy. 00.08.45 Paul Hansen Voice over I thought the staff were very cold. It's difficult; I don't remember it very well. It seemed to me it was a very cold place. 00.09.00 Music 00.09.06 Isobel Hilton Lebensborn children like Paul were victims of a monstrous plan. Then after the war their own country punished them again. 00.09.14 Isobel Hilton A notorious government psychiatrist ruled that ninety percent were retarded. After all, he reasoned, their mothers were mad to have slept with a German - by his definition subnormal too. 00.09.25 Music 00.09.27 Isobel Hilton His mother fled to Germany. Little Paul was abandoned and his government locked him away in a mental asylum. 00.09.36 Singing 00.09.42 Isobel Hilton Today the asylum is a day care centre. But for Paul, incarcerated here as a terrified child, it will never lose its horror. Paul got out in his twenties. Others never did. 00.09.59 Paul Hansen Voice over The room was like, let me see I can't exactly remember. This large room here was divided into three rooms. There were eight or ten people in each, I can't exactly remember. 00.10.14 Isobel Hilton Were you frightened? 00.10.16 Paul Hansen Voice over Yes, I was very afraid. It seemed to me it wasn't normal here. That's what I thought. It was all the screaming. The children who were really disturbed making a lot of noise during the night. That was the worst thing. 00.10.36 Isobel Hilton Apart from the humiliation of being in a mental institution, were you made to feel your German parentage? 00.10.45 Paul Hansen Voice over Yes, it was a shameful thing you could say - to be an enemy in your own country. When the peace was declared then we felt that the war was waged against us. People turned their hate on us. So it was really very frightening. 00.11.14 Isobel Hilton Werner Thiermann spent fifteen years uncovering his own past. He identified his father at last, only to discover that he was long dead. The official silence has begun to break down now and others are following Werner's example. 00.11.30 Isobel Hilton Now the Lebensborn children have begun to speak out and they're pressing their own government for compensation and for recognition. 00.11.37 Werner Thiermann They can never repair the scars but they could put a small plaster on the scars by giving us compensation. 00.11.50 Isobel Hilton Even today many in Norway won't help them and many of the victims are too psychologically scarred to take action. But Werner's one of a group that has found a lawyer prepared to take their case. 00.12.13 Isobel Hilton Randi Spiedevold has become a passionate advocate of their cause. 00.12.19 Isobel Hilton Randi grew up after the war and until this case she'd known nothing of the Lebensborn programme or what these people had suffered. Meeting the group has made her reflect on her own country's behaviour. 00.12.31 Isobel Hilton When you began to discover what had happened, how did you feel about Norway? 00.12.39 Randi Spiedevold What I felt about Norway it was shame and I was really, really surprised because so many people had knew about this and never said anything. And when you see, look at Norway as the Nobel Peace Price country and we are going out through all the world telling people how to behave in war, after war and how we have to excuse everything and behave in a proper way towards the suffering people. It's amazing why we had to do these things with our own children. 00.13.22 Isobel Hilton The children, and their mothers, did pay all their lives. Werner's mother's head was shaved and she was interned with twelve hundred others on this island in Oslo Harbour. 00.13.33 Isobel Hilton Her internment camp used to be here. Only faint traces of its foundations remain - a hint of Norway's shameful secret. 00.13.41 Isobel Hilton The scars of the Lebensborn children will never be erased. 00.13.45 Werner Thiermann I will survive; the bitterness will still be there though. Well you feel so torn, torn apart in a way. I don't really know why this should happen to us just because we have a German father, I mean there is millions has fathers from other countries. So, that's a bit hard to understand for us. 00.14.11 Music 00.14.20 Isobel Hilton The Lebensborn children were rejected by their own society, an embarrassment to their mothers and abandoned by Germany - the nation that saw itself and them as the master race. 00.14.31 Music 00.14.35 Isobel Hilton Today many feel they will never really fit in their own society unless they get justice. 00.14.40 Music 00.14.47 Paul Hansen Voice over This part of our history has been hushed up. Everybody should see how we were treated at that time. It should be brought out into the open. 00.14.58 Music 00.15.03 Paul Hansen Voice over I think that it's important that justice is done and then we can get on with our lives and put it all behind us. Behind us. Yes, it's important that justice is done and then we can move on. 00.15.20 Music 00.15.24 Isobel Hilton Last New Year the Norwegian Prime Minister apologised publicly to the Lebensborn children for the way they'd been treated. 00.15.32 Isobel Hilton After more than fifty years Norway has begun to acknowledge the terrible consequences of the Nazi's genetic ambitions. 00.15.40 Music 00.15.46 Edward Stourton The genetic ambitions of today's scientists are little short of awe-inspiring. Genetics could turn out to be the most powerful weapon human kind has ever had in the battle against disease. 00.15.56 Edward Stourton The way they're carrying out their research has had one curious consequence. It's turned some of Europe's communities into what can only be described as living laboratories. 00.16.04 Edward Stourton Matt Ridley, the author of two books on genetics, has been to Sardinia to find out why the island is suddenly the focus of so much high powered and well financed attention. 00.16.13 Edward Stourton He began his journey at the birthplace of this scientific adventure, where the structure of DNA was first discovered. Cambridge is still a driving force behind genetic research. 00.16.24 Music 00.16.40 Matt Ridley In the tranquil English village of Hinxton, near Cambridge, the bucolic scene is deceptive. 00.16.46 Music 00.16.48 Matt Ridley Secure behind these trees lies the Sanger Centre, which is the epicentre of a spectacular scientific revolution. 00.16.57 Music 00.17.01 Matt Ridley The human genome project is preparing a working draft of the complete set of human genes, which will be finished here next month. 00.17.12 Matt Ridley Modern genetics is a hi-tech operation. Robots specially built by engineers here at Sanger seek out colonies of bacteria, the dots in the dishes and pick them out to be grown in test tubes of broth. 00.17.27 Matt Ridley Each bacterium has a different little segment of human DNA in it - the material of which our genes are made. 00.17.34 Matt Ridley The job of the bacteria is to copy that DNA many times. Together all these overlapping fragments make up the human genetic instruction manual - a kind of autobiography of our species. 00.17.47 Dr John Sulston It's rather wonderful to know that we actually have, in our computers, the complete instructions to make a human being. 00.17.54 Matt Ridley This is a long way from knowing human nature. But it is the beginning of understanding what makes us tick. 00.18.02 Aston Dr JOHN SULSTON Human Genome Project There are no doubt genes which are, which affect one's intelligence, which affects one's appreciation of music, genes which affect physical strength and so forth, all of the human attributes. But most of these characters or indeed all of them, I think I can safely say now because we've explored probably all the very simple cases, are the result of combinations of a large number of genes interacting in ways that we don't understand. 00.18.27 Matt Ridley Here in the Sequencing Room is where the information contained in human genes is decoded by robotic machines. 00.18.34 Matt Ridley It's effectively rather like reading very long messages written in an alphabet of just four letters. Each letter is a different chemical or base - adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine or A, C, G and T. On the screen they're represented as different colours - blue, red, yellow and green. 00.18.54 Matt Ridley Base by painstaking base, letter by letter, the original sequence of the human genome is decoded. It is the order of the letters that determines the function. To the human body this is a stream of text full of meaning. 00.19.08 Matt Ridley For the first time in the four billion year story of life on this planet a species is reading its own recipe book. The human genome is a very long book. This bible has nearly four million letters in it; the human genome is eight hundred times longer. 00.19.26 Matt Ridley And hidden within its text are digital coded messages - genes - nearly eighty thousand of them. What they can tell us about ourselves both as individuals and as a species is virtually limitless. 00.19.43 Matt Ridley But to find each gene and understand what it means, scientists need the help of some very ordinary folk - people that time forgot. 00.19.55 Matt Ridley Geneticists are suddenly fascinated by people living on islands because they hold the clues to finding genes. 00.20.02 Matt Ridley Here on Sardinia the genetic pedigrees of mountain people are so sought after that bitter rivalries have developed over who should read their genes. 00.20.12 Matt Ridley In the Ogliastra region, in the east of the island, people can trace their family trees back through many generations to just a few founding ancestors in each village. 00.20.23 Matt Ridley At this seminary in the town of Lanuzei, the church archives gave a clue to what the geneticists were looking for. 00.20.32 Matt Ridley The official government records reach back less than a hundred and fifty years. But the archives held in the diocesan museum here stretch back to the sixteenth century, after the Council of Trent ordered all parishes to register baptisms. 00.20.46 Matt Ridley In this case the church is happy to use its records in the cause of science. 00.20.52 Bishop Voice over Since everyone was catholic the book of the baptised is a kind of register of the population of the town or village. Let's take the first house. Andras Sulis, he must be the head of the house, the father. Nicola la Vacca, that's the mother, then come the children and the other people who were there. 00.21.15 Matt Ridley The records here provided an astonishingly full account of the family history of some of the most remote and isolated communities in Europe. 00.21.23 Matt Ridley The village of Talana stands out. An ancient community of farmers and shepherds hidden in the folds of the mountains, an hours drive from Lanuzei. 00.21.32 Singing 00.21.38 Matt Ridley Most of Talana's twelve hundred people are descended from just sixteen ancestors from several hundred years ago. This means they share many genes including genes for common diseases. 00.21.51 Matt Ridley This is what brought Professor Mario Pirastu to Talana. The village, he thought, would be a good hunting ground for genes. Here he interviews the Loi sisters, all of whom have a problem with high blood pressure. He thinks they share the same genetic mutation. 00.22.06 Professor Mario Pirastu Subtitles We went back to 1600 with your families... about 15 or 20 generations. This has allowed us to find out from your DNA... what you have in common. 00.22.22 Loi Sister 1 Subtitle When will we have some results? 00.22.26 Professor Mario Pirastu Subtitle I don't know yet, but soon. 00.22.31 Loi Sister 1 Subtitle Let's hope so! 00.22.34 Professor Mario Pirastu Subtitles Yes, let's hope so - then we can find the right gene therapy. 00.22.40 Matt Ridley Franca Murru is the Mayor of Talana. She can trace her ancestors back for many generations. 00.22.48 Matt Ridley So long as these family trees are mostly accurate, what I'm being shown is a genetic gold mine. 00.22.58 Franca Murru Voice over Here are the family trees for the entire population of Talana. This one, for example, is my family. These are my grandparents. Here they are - Domenico Murru and Maria Giovanna Cabras. Going further back we get to about sixteen hundred. 00.23.17 Matt Ridley Genealogy has become the village sport. One thousand people have already given blood or tissue samples to the project. They are joining the genetic revolution. 00.23.29 Matt Ridley Back on the other side of the island, in the shadow of an ancient watchtower, Mario Pirastu brings the blood samples to his laboratory. Pirastu's labs contain the same hi-tech gene reading machines as the Sanger Centre. 00.23.44 Matt Ridley The blood samples from Talana are purified. The DNA is extracted and copied. 00.23.52 Matt Ridley The DNA fragments are inserted by hand into a sequencer and separated into pieces of different lengths. 00.24.02 Matt Ridley Computers analyse the results and the long search for genes begins. Using information from the Sanger Centre, Doctor Pirastu homes in on those bits of the genome that differ between different people. 00.24.14 Matt Ridley Somewhere in all those millions of T's, G's, C's and A's may lie the gene that predisposes people to kidney stones or hypertension. 00.24.24 Matt Ridley Here a set of markers is emerging. Known landmarks within the human genome. 00.24.30 Professor Mario Pirastu In these small blocks, you can see here there are genetic markers which are very closely associated with the gene we are searching and probably one of them, in our case for example this one, is very close to the gene. We know this because this marker is present in all our patients in our village. So that means that close to this marker there must be the gene. 00.25.02 Matt Ridley Pirastu's team has located the gene for kidney stones. In Talana they recognise that this is not just pure research but will have direct medical benefits. 00.25.15 Franca Murru Voice over There's never been any problem with getting the people to have their own DNA examined and taken away. I don't know whether had a group of foreigners arrived we would have responded in the same way. 00.25.32 Franca Murru Voice over I think we're a rather suspicious people. So the fact that the researcher who approached us was born here, because Professor Pirastu was born in a village nearby, is a kind of guarantee. We're certain that we won't be betrayed - that is fundamental. 00.25.54 Singing 00.25.56 Matt Ridley Seventy miles south of Talana in the Sardinian capital of Cagliari, other geneticists are engaged in a similar quest. 00.26.04 Matt Ridley At a university teaching hospital they have taken a very different approach and caused a controversy that has engulfed the scientific community here. 00.26.15 Matt Ridley Bronchial asthma is common in Sardinia, even among people from rural villages. 00.26.22 Matt Ridley Professor Licinio Contu, an expert in the genetics of the immune system, believes there are genes in these people that render them vulnerable to asthma. 00.26.31 Matt Ridley Although asthma is usually thought of as an environmental disease, some people inherit their susceptibility to it. 00.26.39 Professor Licinio Contu Subtitle Does your family suffer from asthma? 00.26.42 Boy Subtitle Yes, my mother and sisters. 00.26.48 Professor Licinio Contu Subtitles Do they suffer in the same way... or do they have different forms? 00.26.53 Boy Subtitle Like me. 00.26.56 Matt Ridley Asthma is a growing medical burden all over the world. A cure would be a lucrative prize. 00.27.05 Professor Licinio Contu Voice over We believe that there are at least three or four genes responsible for asthma, possibly more. We believe that one of them, possibly the predominant one, can be found in the course of one or two years. 00.27.19 Matt Ridley Doctor Contu wants to find those genes. And he's enlisted the help of an American biotech company called Myriad Genetics, which specialises in gene discovery. 00.27.29 Matt Ridley That worries some people here who see it as genetic piracy. 00.27.35 Professor Licinio Contu Voice over I do not believe that it is in the interests of the sick, either in Sardinia or anywhere else in the world, that scientific research should take ten years to yield results which could be obtained within a year or two. I believe that what Myriad is doing is an advantage for humanity. 00.27.56 Matt Ridley The collaboration with Myriad is organised by a company called Biotecne, based in a Cagliari side street. 00.28.03 Matt Ridley Samples of Sardinian blood are to be shipped to Salt Lake City for analysis. 00.28.09 Matt Ridley Some scientists, some geneticists in Sardinia are saying that this is not the right approach, that the approach should be to find benefits for the Sardinian population in the first instance. 00.28.24 Professor Licinio Contu Voice over I see nothing scandalous about an industry or enterprise investing billions in scientific research in the hope of reaping economic benefits from it. It's perfectly natural. 00.28.39 Professor Licinio Contu Voice over One must not forget that had it not been for the contribution made by the large American biotechnological companies, scientific progress on DNA and on the genes responsible for illnesses would be far behind what it is today. 00.28.58 Matt Ridley Back in Talana, the villagers have become such enthusiastic geneticists that the local council has contributed its own public funds to help build a laboratory in the heart of the village. 00.29.09 Matt Ridley Pirastu believes that if the villagers' genes are going to benefit humanity there should also be a clinic to follow up their health. Subtitles 00.29.17 Professor Mario Pirastu What is going here? Man This is the lab. 00.29.20 Professor Mario Pirastu And there? Man The lab as well. 00.29.23 Professor Mario Pirastu And the entrance? Man The entrance is there. 00.29.27 Professor Mario Pirastu And over there, another entrance? 00.29.29 Man No, that's the main entrance over there. 00.29.33 Matt Ridley A consortium has been formed. A sort of genetic national park is planned in the unlikely setting of the Ogliastra region. 00.29.44 Professor Mario Pirastu I consider genetics as a natural resource of this territory. I think it is very important that we make the case of Sardinia. In other words we help to construct a very important project for, not only Sardinia, but also for the rest of the world. 00.30.10 Matt Ridley The people of Sardinia are finding that genes are like words - you can give them away and still posses them yourself. 00.30.18 Matt Ridley Yet if today's children are to see the benefits of this research - better diagnosis, more effective drugs, preventive diets - they need reassurance that the fruits of that research do not become the monopoly of foreign companies. 00.30.37 Edward Stourton Who really owns our genes and who has a right to profit from their secrets. 00.30.41 Edward Stourton New legal and ethical dilemmas are being thrown up all the time and genetic science is moving so fast that governments seem uncertain how to respond. There's no real European consensus on biotechnology that's already in use, in vitro fertilisation for example, let alone on future challenges like human cloning. 00.30.58 Edward Stourton As for the traditional guardians of morality, well in Rome I found that the gap between the practitioners and the preachers is growing wider all the time. 00.31.08 Music 00.31.28 Edward Stourton Treating the infertile has made Doctor Severino Antinori rich and famous. 00.31.33 Music 00.31.35 Edward Stourton But he's never a man to shrink from the heroic; he sees his work as a crusade for humanism. 00.31.40 Music 00.31.46 Doctor Severino Antinori Voice over Freedom of thought, the right to life, human rights, this is my philosophy. Man is at the centre of the world and man's interests are at the centre of humanity. Man should have his dignity, his freedom, his self-respect. I am against any ideology, any religious movement, any fundamentalism that is against man's freedom. 00.32.10 Edward Stourton He relishes controversy, this Spring Italy was gripped by a court battle over surrogate motherhood and parliament has been debating tighter laws on artificial insemination. 00.32.20 Edward Stourton The doctor was out there mixing it with the best of them on morning television. 00.32.24 Music 00.32.30 Presenter Voice over Why has the state not done more to help people who can't have children? 00.32.35 Doctor Severino Antinori Voice over It's a form of cruelty, those who are sterile are just left alone; they are just swept under the carpet. It's a cultural taboo in our society. Italy has to come in line with Europe or it will be outcast by those who defend the rights of couples to have a child, which is in any event an inalienable right. 00.32.58 Edward Stourton From bio-ethics the show moves swiftly onto cookery but in Italy this battle has been well and truly joined. 00.33.07 Music 00.33.18 Edward Stourton Saint Peter's is but a short walk from the clinic where Doctor Antinori practices. The church regards the creation of life as its business too. 00.33.27 Music 00.33.29 Edward Stourton And for the Pope's advisor on bio-ethics, Monsignor Elio Screggia, it's the laws of God that matter not the possibilities opened up by science. 00.33.41 Monsignor Elio Screggia Voice over The best interests of the child are served when it is conceived by an act of love between a father and a mother, when the child is born from love and not the work of a laboratory. It is entirely for the child's welfare that we are against artificial procreation. Naturally, as well as these reasons, we must consider the dignity of the married couple themselves, which is destroyed with artificial procreation. 00.34.15 Doctor Severino Antinori Subtitle Now I have a biological choice. 00.34.18 Edward Stourton And an awesome choice it is. 00.34.21 Edward Stourton Doctor Antinori is deciding which of a selection of fertilised eggs he will implant in the womb of one of his patients. 00.34.34 Edward Stourton This technology is, of course, well established and widely used now. What's made Doctor Antinori stand out, especially in catholic Italy, is his willingness to push it to the limits. 00.34.47 Edward Stourton When someone comes to him seeking help he makes no moral judgement on the home any child he helps create may have. 00.34.57 Edward Stourton The woman waiting to receive those eggs today, Vania de Felippo, is single and plans to stay that way for the moment. She declares herself a catholic but she's of a generation that believes in choices. 00.35.10 Edward Stourton She's comfortably off in her late thirties and she wants a child. 00.35.21 Vania de Felippo Voice over I'm sure that some people think I'm doing a very selfish thing. Frankly I don't care. For me this is a gesture of love because I will be giving life to a person not taking it away. That's what's important to me and I don't care what other people think. 00.35.41 Edward Stourton The church is conscious that it's losing the argument with Vania's generation and Monsignor Screggia's Academy for Life was set up by the Vatican in the mid- 1990's to think through the issues and sell the catholic story. 00.35.55 Edward Stourton But the theology at the heart of the Monsignor's lectures at Rome's catholic university has roots which go back centuries. Technology may change but the basic moral judgements don't. 00.36.05 Applause 00.36.12 Monsignor Screggia Voice over A child born from in vitro fertilisation merits all the dignity and respect of any other child. Just as a child which is born of the result of incest or an extra-marital act, an adultery, these children do not have any blame nor do they lose any of their dignity. 00.36.39 Edward Stourton This is Doctor Antinori's most famous and most controversial patient - the world's oldest mother. 00.36.48 Edward Stourton Rosanna della Corte was sixty-three years old when she gave birth to her son Riccardo. 00.36.54 Edward Stourton Today he's five and she's not so very far from her seventies. 00.37.08 Rosanna della Corte Voice over I wasn't worried at all, I felt strong, I was sure I could go through with it. Naturally now I'm a bit more worried because I wonder whether I will live until he's at least sixteen or seventeen. At that age a child is old enough to look after himself. So let's hope the Lord gives me the health to take care of him a bit longer. 00.37.41 Edward Stourton Rosanna della Corte sought fertility treatment after the death of her first son. He too was called Riccardo and he was killed in a car accident when he was seventeen. 00.37.55 Edward Stourton He's still missed with all the intensity of a mother's love. 00.38.03 Rosanna della Corte Voice over Riccardo used to be scared of the dark, so sometimes when it's three or four in the morning I take the car and come up here. I come up here and I say; Riccardo, don't be afraid, Mama's here and will stay close to you. I'm sure that I imagine many things but I like to think that I'm some company for him so that he won't be afraid. 00.38.28 Edward Stourton Rosanna della Corte wanted a new Riccardo. She was past menopause so a donated egg was used with her husband's sperm. That of course means she has no genetic relationship to this son. But she insists there's more than enough of the old Riccardo in the new one given to her by Doctor Antinori. 00.38.48 Rosanna Della Corte Voice over I wanted to go to the Pope and talk to him. I wanted to bring Riccardo to him and say; you're against this but look at the treasure I've made. You shouldn't be against these things. 00.39.06 Edward Stourton Young Riccardo is now beginning to pose awkward questions about why he has parents so much older than those of his friends. 00.39.15 Music 00.39.24 Edward Stourton The man who made his life possible makes few concessions to the passing of the years in his own life. 00.39.29 Music 00.39.37 Edward Stourton Doctor Antinori wants the world to know about the great strides ahead he's taken and he believes that when it comes to fertility treatment the only boundaries should be those imposed by science. 00.39.48 Music 00.39.54 Doctor Severino Antinori Voice over There are limitations. We can refuse to treat a woman of forty-three because she isn't physically fit enough and take on a woman of fifty-seven because she is in excellent condition. This is a very clear distinction and the decision is very clear. It's a purely medical decision, not a matter for ethical assessment. 00.40.21 Edward Stourton It takes just a few minutes to implant the fertilised eggs in Vania's womb. 00.40.33 Edward Stourton This is fairly routine stuff and Doctor Antinori is already dreaming of pushing the frontiers of fertility treatment back still further. 00.40.44 Edward Stourton He claims to have helped infertile men by growing their sperm in tissue taken from mice testicles. 00.40.58 Edward Stourton And he says if he could clone a human, he would. 00.41.11 Doctor Severino Antinori Voice over There are some men that will have to be cloned, men who have certain particular problems. Human cloning, well maybe it is quite a way off but I ask you a man without testicles who cannot procreate because he has no testicles - how else can he pass on his own genes? Except through cloning. 00.41.42 Monsignor Screggia Voice over Cloning is not progress; it's a backward step. Even in the biological context it impoverishes the genetic inheritance. The richness of humanity depends on the joining together of two genetic lineages, which can then increase the richness of genes down the generations. Cloning is a magic trick, a sad diversion, which some scientists but not true science may let happen. 00.42.23 Edward Stourton In a market place at the heart of medieval Rome a highly charged anniversary is being marked this year. It's four centuries since the scientist monk Giodarno Bruno was burnt for his beliefs in the centre of this square. 00.42.35 Edward Stourton Doctor Antinori is only too eager to associate himself with this towering figure in the history of science. 00.42.42 Music 00.42.50 Doctor Severino Antinori Voice over There have always been victims like Bruno, lots of scientists throughout history and there still are today. The church might change its methods but it will always want to burn them. The church says that we are meddling with nature yet it's the church that has always been the greatest enemy of science and of man. 00.43.17 Music 00.43.24 Edward Stourton We'll be raising more questions about identity and history in next week's Correspondent Europe, which is dedicated to the theme of nationality. 00.43.32 Edward Stourton Since a party many regard as extreme joined Austria's government, the fear of a new nationalism has cast a shadow over Europe's politics. 00.43.40 Edward Stourton We have a profile of the man who sees himself as the Belgian Haider. And from Austria itself, a new twist to the old debate about sovereignty and a European super state. 00.43.50 Edward Stourton We've also asked the BBC's Ireland Correspondent Denis Murray, to bring his years of experience reporting from Belfast to bear on what's happening today in Kosovo. 00.43.58 Edward Stourton Until then, goodbye. 00.43.41 Credits www.bbc.co.uk/correspondent Production Team MARTHA ESTCOURT FIONA LAWSON-BAKER NICK DODD DAVID LINES VANESSA VARTANIAN VT Editor ROD HUTSON Graphic Designer NICOLA OWEN Production Manager JANE WILLEY Unit Manager IRENE OZGA Cameras CALLE BØRRESEN ANTHONY LEAKE FRED SCOTT CLAUDIO TONDI Sound ERIK VOLD Researchers VIRGINIA MUCCHI HELENA POZNIAK Picture Editors DAVID HOWELL BERNARD LYALL Producers DAVID AKERMAN JOHN THYNEE GUY SMITH Series Producer LUCY HETHERINGTON 00.44.00 End Music 00.44.04 Editor FIONA MURCH (c) BBC MM 00.44.06 End Correspondent 21 22