Franks Stephen: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
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STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 The previous National Party speaker slightly mischaracterised my argument. I was not arguing that there should be no regulation; of course the normal constraints of the Hippocratic oath “first do no harm” and all the other kinds of obligations on medical practitioners should apply. The idea that someone should be allowed to deliberately or quite cold-bloodedly sacrifice the interests of one patient for money is antithetical to that in any event. In this area all the normal medical ethics would prevail. There is no reason to consider that they are excluded. However the member talked about enormous complexities and legal problems. We simply do not know that. 
Parliament is imagining a host of menaces and Frankenstenian monsters and deciding in advance what powers it will confer on a group of doctors. They will kick for touch because they are already battered by legal risks. They will make sure New Zealand is not at the forefront of any of this. New Zealanders who are rich will be fine. New Zealanders with the money will be able to go off shore just as Irish women had to go off shore to get around the Catholic Church - inspired ban on contraceptives—in fact as New Zealanders used to have to go off shore for abortions. Wealthy people will not be hurt by this. This will hurt ordinary hard-working people who cannot afford to go to countries that do not have a bunch of politicians who are quite so sanctimonious. 
When I look at the provisions that were mentioned for example clause 13 “Commercial supply of human embryos or human gametes prohibited” I see there is no reason why people would cease to be altruistic simply because others might advertise and be willing to pay for the inconvenience embarrassment and risk particularly now that this bill goes on to require that there be disclosure. Now we cannot have anonymous donors although we can still have entirely anonymous fathers—I think we have 15000 of them every year through the welfare system where there is no requirement to disclose who impregnated the beneficiary. We now have a requirement. People may want to be compensated for the risk that in 10 or 15 years’ time someone will front up to them and say: “Hello dad I want you to meet your moral obligations.” 
What we have here is a very prissy and very anti-commercial attitude. It sounds very fine saying that there should not be commercial surrogacy but it really means that the really public-spirited person the person who has loved having her own kids has found pregnancy not to be a burden and would be quite happy to add that delight to another family cannot be compensated. Curiously enough the elite folk in the industry have made sure that they have exempted themselves. They are allowed to collect store transport counsel surrogacy inseminate for surrogacy purpose do ovulation and pregnancy tests for surrogacy services and give legal advice. They are free of any sanction. However the woman who does all the work and who actually carries the child could be fined $100000 by the prigs who pass this law. 
I ask this Parliament to think a little bit past the self-righteousness that goes in saying: “We will only have volunteers in this industry.” That is all very well if there are enough volunteers. What about the thousands of New Zealanders out there at the moment who cannot find adopted children? Volunteering does not necessarily meet the demand. In an orgy of self-congratulation this Parliament is about to pass a bill that simply states that we cannot compensate someone for carrying a child for another family. I do not see anything worthy about that. I do not see anything high-moralled about that. I see that as a simple exercise—one group of privileged people saying: “We will judge others.” Similarly with advertising. Then look at the committee provisions. This committee however it is composed will do something that our society rejected years ago. When electricity came in when flying came in or when motorcars came in if a committee of experts had been available to decide whether those were utterly safe they would never have gone anywhere. They would not have happened. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 When we look at the fine print of this bill someone like Mr Franks should be very reassured because in the absence of any regulation basically it is all left to some very vague guidelines that would enable almost anything to take place and that would be very very hard to police. Dr Hutchison corrected me—there are some regulations that prohibit some things and we are very thrilled about those. Despite what Mr Franks said they do prohibit genetic engineering cloning and a few other things and we are very very pleased about those. But although this bill has a whole set of regulations about what is prohibited it basically has no regulations about what is permitted and that is our problem. That is why we have a very simple amendment to insert new clause 35A which basically states that guidelines issued by the advisory committee may be used as a basis of an ethics committee approval once they have been issued as regulations. 
I want to point out to the Committee just how weak those guidelines are. I have a number of those guidelines and one could literally drive the veritable bus through any of them. In fact I do not see how any of them could be enforced. As an example the guidelines on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis just released 2 days ago say basically that it is the responsibility of the providers—the fertility clinics—to decide whether a disorder is likely to be serious in an offspring of a particular couple. So it is up to the fertility clinics to decide. Where does one draw the line? What is a serious disorder? Is it a cleft palate? What is it? That is just an example. The guidelines state that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for anything will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Dr Linda Scott is looking perplexed. She should look at the guidelines. 
Another guideline I have here is for the disposal storage and use of sperm of a deceased man and it states: “A clinic should undertake an annual review … It is expected that sperm collected in the circumstances would be stored for a maximum period specified by the clinics.” How will that be enforced? It is expected that they will be collected for a maximum period—it is expected. It is also stated that partners of the deceased should be encouraged to inform the wider family or whanau. How will that be reinforced? These are wiffly-waffly words—“it is expected; we should have done this or we should have done that.” How will the Government try to use that as a basis for policy making regulation or enforcement? It will not be able to. 
Here is another example and this will exercise Stephen Franks. It is “Guidelines for non-commercial altruistic surrogacy using IVF as a treatment” and it states that the prospective birth mother and her partner should have completed their family as this may reduce the likelihood they will want to keep the child. It also states that they should take measures to ensure that they do not conceive their own child during the treatment. Frankly it is just laughable. Fortunately the Minister is listening to this. Those are the guidelines that will regulate some of the most far-reaching things in New Zealand about how far we may go in assisted human reproduction and where we will set the limits. Basically Mr Franks can rest assured. 
If one was cynical one would say that this bill is almost in the category of a regulatory facade. It sort of implies that there are clear limits but when we dig down and look at the fine print we see instead that we have some wiffly-waffly guidelines that basically will be unenforceable. That is why all we are asking is that the guidelines as in every other Western country that has legislation should have regulatory force. All we are asking is that they have the force of regulation that would have to be considered by the Regulations Review Committee. Also we have amendments to the effect that the guidelines should come before Parliament and be sent to the Health Committee for consideration.