Shortly after the vote in the Upper House in February 1990 in favour of embryo research, a female contributor to the Sunday Correspondent pointed out that the fate of embryo research would finally be decided in the House of Commons by 607 men and 42 women. The author complained that it was inappropriate and unjust that a legislative decision that would have such a significant impact on women's experiences of childbirth should be taken mainly by men. A similar concern over the parliamentary dominance of men was present among women in Parliament. Several female Labour MPs had protested, during the opening phase of debate, that the central issues were being defined largely by men and that women's opinions were being ignored. These speakers maintained that women's view of human reproduction and of embryo research tended to differ from that of men; and that women's intimate and continual involvement in the reproductive process would enable them, if they were given the opportunity, to make a particularly significant contribution to parliamentary discussion of these matters. In passages such as those quoted below, taken from the Commons debate in February 1985, female speakers expressed their frustration at women's limited representation in Parliament and at what they depicted as the failure of the male majority to appreciate the potential value of women's distinctive testimony: