Scott Lynda: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Scott Lynda: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15915] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Part 2 and schedule 1 deal with some of the concerns I have heard people express in this Chamber. Schedule 1 clearly delineates those prohibited activities that will not be allowed to take place in New Zealand without resulting in 2 years’ imprisonment or a $200000 fine. There are quite hefty penalties for anybody who attempts to break the law in respect of this legislation. 
Some of the things we are debating tonight have to do with philosophy. The issues in this bill come back to the understanding of when life begins to the whole concept from the past of test-tube babies and to where we go in allowing the level of human assisted reproductive technology to develop in this country. The areas in schedule 1 that are prohibited are very clearly delineated. There was discussion on what would be an accepted activity and about how new technologies being developed would be allowed on to the accepted activity list. Concerns were expressed about how Parliament would have scrutiny over new developments that there is doubt about. 
Clause 10 refers to the ethics committee and states that human in vitro embryos can be kept for only 10 years. I think clause 10 gives us a really good example of how an ethics committee would work. It states that a gamete or embryo can be kept for a period of only 10 years and that it would then be up to the ethics committee to make a decision whether to approve any longer period. Let us imagine a child of 13 who finds that she has ovarian cancer and who wants her eggs to be kept and stored. At the end of 10 years she would be only 23. That person may not have found a permanent partner in life and may not want to have a child at that time so she would ask for ethics committee approval for the 10-year period to be extended. If she did not know about that time period and the end of the 10-year period was coming up in a couple of months there would have to be a fairly speedy process. We could not have a 2-year process for approval because those eggs would be destroyed and that would be the end of her chance ever to have children. So we do need a process that can respond to such a situation. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: Before the dinner break we were talking about the role of the ethics committee as well as the role of the ministerial advisory committee as set out in Part 2. We are also considering schedule 1—“Prohibited Actions”. There are nine points clearly set out in this schedule which state that artificially forming for reproductive purposes a hybrid embryo implanting a cloned embryo implanting an animal gamete or embryo into a human and so on are all prohibited. This legislation will have the power to give surety in these areas. 
Another issue that was debated and that will be restricted is the sex selection of human embryos. A sex-linked genetic defect is a defence against the charge of breaking clause 11 which states the restrictions on sex selection of human embryos. So people cannot say that they want a girl or a boy and have an embryo selected on that basis. However if there is a genetic disorder or disease that is passed on because of the sex of the child then a child’s sex can be selected for that reason. 
There will be only one ethics committee and that is appropriate because this is a very highly specialised area and there should be only one agency. The advisory committee about which the Green Party has stated its concerns will have eight to 12 members. They will be looking at the issues of donations of embryos embryo splitting gametes derived from dead people informed consent pre-implantation genetic analysis—that is examining what the genetic code of an embryo may be before it is implanted to ensure that it does not have defects—and importation and exportation of in vitro donated cells. When we start looking at some of these issues we begin to realise the complexity of the issue that we have been debating. For example if people who immigrate to this country have frozen embryos in another country there has to be provision for them to be able to bring in those embryos if they want implantation at a later date. There may be a situation where a man has donated sperm and he still lives in a different country. If a woman has one child through the process of using the donated sperm and she may want to have another child with that same genetic inheritance there has to be a way to be able to import or export in vitro donated cells. Gametes derived from someone who has died brought up a very interesting case in Britain where a woman wanted to use the sperm cells from her husband who had been killed in an accident to create a child. That was a hard-fought legal case. 
These are all interesting ethical and procedural matters that the ministerial advisory committee will have to look at. They often arise from one specific case that may end up before the courts and then worldwide attention is focused on that particular case to look at the moral and ethical dilemmas that are brought about by such a case. 
The other thing we must remember about this bill is that although it has a certain jurisdiction we also have the hazardous substances and new organisms legislation and the Medicines Act. The legislation overlaps to some degree concerning the use of therapies such as somatic cell gene therapy and embryonic stem cell therapy used in genetic modification. There is an overlap that is somewhat different from that of other countries. 
I turn to the status of the advisory committees. It will be an offence to go outside the guidelines. We heard the Hon Bill English’s concerns about the advisory committee and the Minister. The Minister is an elected representative of the country who has been appointed to be in charge of health. He or she will have the responsibility as an elected official to look at the advice given by the ministerial advisory committee. It is a committee appointed by that Minister or maybe by a former Minister. If there are concerns then the Minister should seek further advice either from the public to have a debate on these issues or from the Ministry of Health. The Minister could even ask the select committee for an inquiry or the legislation could be changed if he or she is unhappy with what may have happened or have been proposed. The Minister of Health will be the person who will make those changes. It will be that person’s responsibility to decide what will change from being experimental to becoming a recognised procedure. Look back to the cloning of Dolly the sheep. When that occurred around the world there was a call for legislation to try to prevent cloning and that will happen with this legislation tonight. 
Stephen Franks 
: Why support it? 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: I am supporting this bill because it gives a clear way to regulate against the sorts of things that very few people in this country would want to see. They would not want to see cloning and they would not want to see the genetic engineering of babies—they would not want to see that. But there needs to be a process whereby we can move forward.