The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) condemned the vote, saying, "Future generations would regard the bill as devaluing human life." SPUC said they will raise the issue during the next general election.

Besides allowing the creation of cloned human/animal embryos for experimentation, the bill will enshrine in law all the individual permissions given in the last 16 years by the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. It will allow homosexual partners to have children created for them in IVF labs after it abolishes the requirement that doctors consider the "need for a father" in artificial procreation treatments. It allows the creation of children, called "saviour siblings," to be used as tissue donors for siblings, and permits the genetic manipulation of embryos for eugenic purposes. Earlier this week, it was also revealed that the government plans to use the bill to allow the creation of human clones from tissues taken from mentally incapacitated patients who cannot give consent.

Describing the vote as "tragic" and the bill itself as "macabre," SPUC director John Smeaton said, "Our only consolation is that thousands of people across the country have joined a concerted campaign in solidarity with unborn children."

"Scores" of doctors, lawyers and academics, as well as representatives of other faiths joined in the combined efforts of the various pro-life groups to oppose the bill.