Scott Lynda: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Recommittal In Committee Third Reading Procedure 
Scott Lynda: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Recommittal In Committee Third Reading Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:16849] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 This is a conscience vote and I will be supporting this bill. Human assisted reproductive technology legislation which has included a National Government bill and Dianne Yates member’s bill has had nearly 7 years’ gestation. It was born I think to caring parents with few complications due to good timing and cooperation between the midwife who was the chairperson of the Health Committee Steve Chadwick; our resident obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Paul Hutchison; the general practitioner myself; and other members of the select committee who were the support crew. 
 We have learnt from overseas experience. The timing of this bill is important. I was actually in England and in Australia when they were debating their legislation on this issue and the debate was very heated. Look at us tonight—quiet as lambs! We have heard from Bill English who has serious concerns—and he has been a Minister of Health. We have heard a few other speeches against the bill but it is going through the House tonight with little in the way of major controversy. That is because other countries have gone before us. We have learnt from overseas experience and that has made the passage of the bill easier. 
The issues are complex and complicated. The select committee took a lot of time to tease out the issues that were before us. We have not answered the question of when a new life begins which is what some of the debate has been around. An egg and sperm are both living; an embryo forms then a fetus—life is continuous. So there has been debate about when life begins and what should and should not be allowed. With the cloning of Dolly the sheep man moved another step closer to the cloning of a human being; it became only a matter of time. That cloning of an animal prompted a lot of countries to take the step of introducing legislation which was often rushed. We have had the advantage of being able to take our time. 
Legislation such as the bill we are passing in the House tonight is a response to that advance in technology. Schedule 1 lists nine prohibited activities. These include artificially forming a cloned embryo artificially forming a hybrid embryo implanting into a human being a cloned embryo implanting into a human being an animal gamete or embryo and so on. But in this legislation we have been somewhat more permissive about other issues. We are going to see the development of guidelines that will govern them. 
I was recently talking to a colleague about the trauma of childlessness. People need to have been in that situation to know the heartbreak caused to a couple when they cannot have their own child and to know what women and their partners go through when they try to conceive a child and cannot. There has to be a way to respond rapidly to new technology. I ask members to put themselves in the place of someone who knows that she cannot have a child and who hears of breaking new technology that would allow her and her partner to do so. It might be that surrogacy is to be accepted as it was not for a long time—not commercial surrogacy because that is banned—or it might be that there is new technology that would allow her to have a child. Imagine the heartbreak of sitting for years either waiting for this Parliament—which moves very slowly—to get a piece of legislation through or waiting for an ethics committee to make a decision. Just imagine the heartache. The select committee heard from people in this position who for years and years have waited for a decision. That I think is very cruel and the select committee was moved by some of those submissions. 
The legislation we are dealing with tonight allows for less prescriptive assessment of new technologies around human-assisted reproduction. New technologies can happen slowly or sometimes there may be a major breakthrough. Sometimes doctors and researchers are engaged in developing a technology and accidents happen that lead to a major new development. This bill sets up an advisory committee to advise the Minister of Health on new technologies and whether they should become permitted activities. The Minister of Health is obviously responsive to public pressure. A one-off event is unlikely to gain much media attention unless it is something like the English case where Mrs Blood wanted the sperm of her husband who had been killed in an accident to be gathered so that she could have a child by him after his death. That went to court and caused a huge debate about the ethical implications about whether she should be allowed to or whether he would have had to give consent. That one-off case got a huge amount of publicity. But most of the time one case would not receive that degree of publicity. If a new technology was developing that New Zealanders were uncomfortable about or did not like pressure would certainly come to bear on the Minister of Health and she—or maybe he—would be very unlikely to allow it to be put on the prescriptive list of what can happen. We have the prohibited actions list to which amendments can be made and things added. 
As I said before surrogacy is allowed under this bill but not commercial surrogacy. Parts of the bill are very much about the offspring of those who have a child using a donated egg or donated sperm. The select committee heard quite a few submissions from people in such cases who wanted access to information. We all want to know who our genetic parents are as well as who brought us up. We encourage all New Zealanders who have a child using a donated egg or donated sperm to be open and clear with their children right from the beginning—as with open adoption—about where their roots are who they came from and their genetic inheritance. A child up to the age of 16 can have access to genetic information but not to the identity of the donor. At the age of 18 he or she can get access to the identity of the donor. My colleague Dr Paul Hutchison brought in a Supplementary Order Paper that sets up a voluntary register for those who donated an egg or sperm before giving such details became mandatory as it is now. I have had emails from people who are very supportive of that and I was pleased to see that the Government took up my esteemed colleague’s Supplementary Order Paper. 
This bill will allow research to go on so that medical science can work hard to eradicate debilitating inherited diseases like Huntington’s chorea cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy. I think we would all like to see that. There are some issues in relation to other forms of selection concerning less severe diseases or for example sex selection. We would not agree at this point to people being able to decide the sex of their child. 
So there are important issues that still need to be decided by the advisory committee that sets up guidelines for the ethical committee. Overall I congratulate the chair of the select committee the committee and the officials on the work that was done. I will be supporting this bill.