It’s official: The British government despises fatherhood. Last week, “progressives” on both sides of the House of Commons voted to scrap laws requiring fertilization clinics to consider a child’s need (and right) for a father before administering in vitro fertilization (ivf) treatments to women.

Among its ghastly edicts, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, an update of legislation from 1990, says that lesbians and single mothers can conceive children without having to demonstrate that the child will have a father, or even a father figure. The bill says that babies only need “supportive parenting.”

This bill steals a child’s inalienable right to have a father, viciously attacking the already-ailing institution of fatherhood. Worse still, this destructive law was formulated, sponsored and overwhelmingly supported by the British government!

During the reading of the bill Tuesday of last week, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith submitted an amendment to uphold and strengthen the existing law’s provision for ivf clinics to consider the child’s need for a father before administering treatment. The amendment was defeated by 292 to 217, a majority of 75.

The amendment in defense of fatherhood (albeit a weakened one at that, given that ivf is not natural fatherhood) wasn’t defeated by a handful of votes, it was pummeled by the majority of British politicians!

Minutes after that defeat, an even softer amendment that would have ensured ivf clinics at least consider the child’s need for “supportive parenting and a father or male role model” was also defeated: by 290 to 222, a majority of 68. That’s shocking: The majority of Britain’s leaders don’t even believe a child needs a male role model.

“The votes mean that existing legislation, which calls for clinics to recognize the ‘need for a father,’ will be amended to call simply for ‘supportive parenting,’” reported the Guardian. Surely we have reached the depths of human moral decline and selfishness when the rights of lesbians and single mothers trump the rights of an unborn child to have a father.

Some people think the controversy over the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill is overblown. They argue that comparatively few children—only those born to lesbians and single mothers—will ever feel its effects. Sure the numbers may be comparatively small. But robbing even one child of the right to have a father is a diabolical abuse of power! Others argue that plenty of children are raised without a father (due to death, divorce or abandonment), and that children born under the new legislation will be no different.

But there is a difference, and it’s gargantuan. The British government does not support and promote fatherlessness by shooting fathers, forcing parents to divorce or enthusiastically facilitating child abandonment. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, on the other hand, supports and promotes fatherlessness.

Those who think this story is being overblown need to consider the bill in its full context. The fact that it skated through the House of Commons with support from the majority of British MPs exposes the spiritual and moral vacuity of the British government. It shows that an anti-father conspiracy is rooted in Britain’s leadership: The Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill is nothing less than a state-sponsored attack on the traditional family unit!

In addition, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill sanctions abortions—attacking human life when it is at its most vulnerable.

Ever since World War ii ended, a broad and highly successful cultural assault on fatherhood has been raging in Britain and America. When this bill passes into law, the mercenaries of the anti-father conspiracy—the mainstream media, the feminists and the burgeoning crop of liberal secularists who virulently despise conservatism and the traditional family unit—will be joined and emboldened by legions of British politicians, and empowered by British law.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill will be a massive advance in the war against fatherhood!

“To remove the requirement that a child needs a father,” opined Baroness Deech last year, “is to make a fresh statement to the effect that a child does not need a father. [And this comes] at a time when many of them feel undermined as providers and parents …” (emphasis mine throughout). As if the anti-father vitriol spewing forth from feminists and pop culture weren’t enough, now the British government seeks to undermine and destroy fatherhood with its own legislative poison.

“[I]f faced with a choice between the hope of adults to become parents,” said Lord Patten before the British Parliament last year, “or the welfare and best interests of a child, which all the research that I have seen indicates is helped by a father or a long-term male role model, I would pick the best interests of the child every time. That is why it is so very odd to provide that some children can be legally barred at conception from having one of these ‘fathers.’ It seems as though the government now see fathers as rather curious creatures.”

That’s an understatement. The popularity of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill indicates the British government now considers fatherhood irrelevant!

Lisa Jardine, head of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority and the person responsible for administering the new bill, gleefully remarked that the votes for the bill in Parliament “shows that we’re a society that goes where the evidence leads us.”

Balderdash. The widespread support of the bill shows that British society ignores evidence proving the critical importance of the father’s role.

Not a single ounce of legitimate evidence exists anywhere proving that fatherlessness has even one positive effect on a child. Yet mountains of evidence, and study after study after study, show that fathers are critical to the mental, emotional and physical health and well-being of children. Just this past February, a comprehensive review of past studies (examining 24 separate papers from 1987 to 2007) published in Acta Pædiatrica provided evidence that active fathers play a central role in the lives of both boys and girls.

As much as Ms. Jardine, a scholar and well-respected British historian and author, and a professor at the University of London, likes to tout her government’s ability to follow the evidence, the plain truth is that Ms. Jardine and the British government aren’t following the evidence. They’re trampling it.

A few conservative British stalwarts have kicked up some dust over the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill. Sadly, though, too few Britons grasp the nature and magnitude of their government’s assault on fatherhood. Even fewer possess the moral character, and the depth of understanding about the father’s role, to rally to the defense of the traditional family. The entire nation of Britain ought to be in a furious uproar over their government’s assault on the family. But most are not. Why?

Because the anti-father conspiracy permeates the entire nation of Britain!

That the British government can enact laws destroying fatherhood and not be furiously bombarded by an enraged public testifies to the wild success of anti-father forces in Britain. British society, then, will continue to be marred and ruined by the proven effects of fatherless children; drunkenness and thuggery, crime, sexual promiscuity and the pervasive spread of stds, family disintegration, emotional instability and educational failure will prevail.

The more battles anti-father forces win, the faster and more intensely British society will break down and disintegrate. Liberal socialists, feminists and the politically correct police have together created a cycle of destruction of all that underpinned a once stable British society that the whole world looked to as its exemplar!

Over the years, the Trumpet has regularly reported on the effects of the anti-father conspiracies prevailing in British and American societies. Our archives overflow with articles showing how the demise of fatherhood is one of the leading causes of the societal degradation occurring in these countries. We have also thoroughly explained how fatherhood is the core institution of a healthy, stable and thriving society. If you’re interested in learning more about this subject, begin by reading Conspiracy Against Fatherhood. If you’re a father, and Britain’s assault on fatherhood has motivated you to counter this trend by digging in your heels and becoming a better father to your children, consider reading “Fatherhood 101.”

But those readings will merely whet your appetite for further knowledge on the role of the father. The more one studies this subject, the more one can see that its depth is infinite. Fact is, there are few subjects with as much spiritual depth as the subject of fatherhood. Profound spiritual truths and spiritual parallels exist within the institution of the family under fatherly leadership that will take your breath away, when you understand them. Understanding the role of the father is central to God’s plan for mankind, and pivotal to your spiritual salvation and growth.

That’s why the anti-father conspiracy is so intense. The devil, the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), seeks to destroy the role of the father because he understands how central it is to God’s plan for mankind. Time is fleeting. You must act now. You couldn’t study anything more important than the truth about fatherhood. To begin learning more about the role of the father—and to really see how serious the British government’s assault on fatherhood is—request and read The Missing Dimension in Sex by Herbert W. Armstrong.

There isn’t a more profound and thrilling book about the God-ordained institutions of marriage and family on Earth!