Hutchison Paul: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Recommittal In Committee Third Reading Procedure 
Hutchison Paul: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Recommittal In Committee Third Reading Procedure 
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Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I rise to speak on this very important and in some respects historic evening that brings in the long-awaited Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill which has been in genesis for well over 8 years in many respects. One of the remarkable things is that New Zealand has had no specific legislation surrounding this area for the time that the assisted reproductive technologies have been controversial particularly since in vitro fertilisation and the first test-tube baby back in 1979. What has often not been appreciated is the fact that over those years without specific legislation there have been very professional and well-organised reproductive services in New Zealand. 
I want to take a few moments to talk a little bit about the clinics that carry out the reproductive technology procedures in New Zealand. Those clinics probably investigate about 3500 new couples every year and undertake in the order of 1700 to 2000 cycles of in vitro fertilisation as well as hundreds of cycles of donor insemination and intrauterine inseminations with partner’s sperm each year. There are smaller numbers of donor egg technologies performed and of course a few in vitro fertilisation surrogacies which are non-commercial. About half the treatments are publicly funded and the work of the various clinics both public and private results in the birth of about 800 children each year. That actually is fairly significant given the fact that we have annual birth numbers in New Zealand of about 55000—I think it was about 58000 this year—so it is probably in the order of 2 percent of all births. That is quite a significant number. 
As I was pointing out the extremely significant point is that we have not had specific legislation in this area. A variety of other legislation has been relevant including the Status of Children Amendment Act the Adoption Act the Contraception Abortion and Sterilisation Act etc. In New Zealand the working of these technologies has been very successful. The clinics have voluntarily become involved in and joined the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee which is primarily Australian-based and which requires very high standards of information gathering and high standards of quality assurance. I think that that is one of the good things about some aspects of professionalism in New Zealand. I remember vividly one of the people at the centre of this whole debate Professor Robert Jenson talking about Aldous Huxley’s book 
 Brave New World  
and saying that minimal State interference is so important in terms of allowing the inevitable progress of science. The balancing act of this legislation was between those who felt there should be highly prescriptive legislation and those who felt there should be little legislation whatsoever. I think the balancing act has been reasonably well worked out in that there is flexibility and a degree of future-proofing so that the rapid changes that will inevitably occur in the next 5 to 10 years are indeed able to occur. 
As well as the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee’s regulations which all reproductive clinics in New Zealand followed by the early 1990s local hospital ethics committees recognised the heavy responsibility of making decisions in the area of assisted reproductive technology and that led to the establishment of the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction. From there some very worthwhile work by Dr Papaarangi Reid and Mr Bill Atkin resulted in the production of  
Assisted Human Reproduction: Navigating our Future 
 in 1994 which was a very good basis to work out the legislation that would eventually come before us. 
There were three very important points made by the submission of the fertility clinics. The first point was that the clinics had submitted themselves to a decade of voluntary self-regulation through the use of the accreditation committee. They did that at their own choice and at their own expense. The Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act should be a reminder to us that if professionals whether they are nurses chiropractors acupuncturists or doctors do not carry out their own proactive quality assurance mechanisms and educative activities and if they do not police them themselves then there will be a call for the Government to do so. I think that that is one of the balances that we must keep in mind. 
Secondly in New Zealand the health professionals who are engaged in assisted reproductive technology have built a close relationship with the people they treat. Unlike most other countries where health professional groups and consumers have set up their own separate professional interest organisations in New Zealand the health professionals and consumers made a conscious decision to establish a single organisation: the New Zealand Infertility Society recently renamed fertilityNZ. I think that the contribution the society has made—the interchange and constant communication with both the professionals and the consumers—has led to a very positive powerful and worthwhile dialogue in making inputs into this legislation. I would like to salute the members of all the organisations that have been involved. 
Thirdly it is important that New Zealand is the only country in the world where without legislation the clinics have moved entirely to the use of sperm and egg donors who agree to be identifiable to their offspring. That was achieved through the efforts of medical practitioners counsellors and patients and after considering the best interests of children in terms of what was known at the time about the damaging effect of secrecy in families. So I think that it is highly relevant for us to appreciate that this legislation has indeed been brought about by a lot of thought over many years from a great number of people. 
Naturally the way ahead is hard to predict and one of the beauties of this bill is the fact that it does have flexibility. I am often mind-boggled by the possibilities technically that are presented to us—the possibilities of men having children and the possibilities of actually doing what  
Brave New World 
 suggested and incubating babies out of the uterus as a matter of convenience to society. But when we think of those mind-boggling things we can recall that the mere thought of in vitro fertilisation in 1979 was pretty amazing and yet that was only 24 years ago. Dianne Yates has mentioned the dimension of genetics and genetic modification in relation to the new technologies. Although we must be mindful of the royal commission talking about proceeding with caution I would also make the impassioned plea that we do not surround ourselves with hurdles that are too great to allow us to take advantage of the exciting new technologies ahead of us. I am concerned that the Bioethics Council—Toi te Taiao—could get a little bogged down in the lofty philosophical considerations that it may have to dwell on. I think it is very very important that we do not get the situation we have with regard to the genetics debate where huge advantages to New Zealand could be blocked by great hurdles. 
It is a pleasure to see this bill finally have a third reading. I believe it will serve New Zealand and New Zealanders very well for the future.