English Bill: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — In Committee Procedure 
English Bill: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:16362] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 I think the title is somewhat misleading because this bill is largely about the decision-making process and not so much about the technology itself. Despite what the last speaker said there has been almost no debate on how this bill might impact on research. That is why I think we will find ourselves back here in Parliament not next year but before too long dealing with issues that deserve wide public debate. 
This bill is really the “Human Assisted Reproductive Process Bill” and it is a process that seems to regard any issue to do with human-assisted reproduction as somehow the province of the people who carry out the activity and of a couple of committees who watch over it. I think that that is a bizarre notion and that is why I have opposed this bill right through. 
I want to take just one issue that comes up which was barely discussed in the Committee stage and that is the use in schedule 1 the list of banned processes of the term “for reproductive purposes”. Schedule 1(2) states we are not allowed to: “Artificially form for reproductive purposes a hybrid embryo.” That means of course that we are allowed to do it for any other purpose. Does the public of New Zealand realise that Parliament is about to pass legislation that not just implies but in terms of the debate specifically allows the formation of hybrid embryos for any purpose other than reproduction? Scientific interest or research of course is the catch-all for doing it. It is the same with cloning. We are not allowed to form artificially for reproductive purposes a cloned embryo but we are allowed to form a cloned embryo for research purposes. 
That means we are having no public discussion about an issue that is defined by the mind of the scientist—that is by his or her intent: was it intended for this or for something else? That is the test the only test and I do not believe that those decisions should be left to a couple of ministerially appointed committees. Of course over a period of exposure to the high integrity of people who operate in fertility clinics scientists ethical journals and advisers those committees become entirely used to these ideas but the general public does not. 
I do not believe that the general public supports scientific processes in New Zealand that form cloned embryos for research purposes. I do not believe that the New Zealand public supports the production of hybrid embryos—that is animal-human hybrids—for research purposes. At the moment maybe that process is not happening but when the bill is passed Parliament by implication will have given approval to it. I think that it is a matter that should be debated by the public. 
We have heard a couple of speakers talk about the timeliness of decisions on this matter. This Parliament passed the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act which means we have more hurdles for approving a common chemical that has been used for 25 years in New Zealand than we have for hybrid embryo farming. Because of the rules that we have made it is harder to get approval for widely used well-known almost non-toxic chemicals than it is to farm embryos for cloning research. In that respect I am conservative but I believe that this legislation is not conservative enough. 
The legislation is no longer about just making sure infertile couples can have babies—that is accepted practice. It is about a whole new world around which there is emotion and hysteria. We have only to look at the US presidential debate to see the bizarre claims made by someone who wants to lead the free world about how stem cell research will fix everything—when there is not a hope of that actually happening in the next few decades. 
 So there is no doubt at all that these issues have much wider resonance than a ministerially appointed ethics committee. That is not to question the integrity of those people; it is just that these issues deserve wider public debate.