Franks Stephen: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15917] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I listened to that speech and thought it a very good example of the kind of well-meaning humbug we find so often when Parliament rushes to legislate in areas in which it understands nothing. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: 8 long years. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The rush was in introducing it. The reason it has not gone through is that parliamentarians even though they would love to look busy in this area realised that they do not have the faintest idea of what is happening. They do not know how to regulate this issue and do not know what the mischief is but they still want to write rules. That is why it is a rush to legislate. The fact that they have not managed to get it through is slight evidence of a wee bit of humility but no more—a tiny bit of humility. In Part 2 of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill the establishment is saying that it really wants to make rules although it has not got a clue why. Here we ban the commercial supply of embryos. We ban paid surrogacy. If this bill was covering— 
Judy Turner 
: Are you for it? 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I am absolutely in favour of paid surrogacy. A woman who goes through all of those months of pregnancy fully deserves to be paid for the time the investment the weariness and all the other costs that relate to pregnancy. She should absolutely be paid for her surrogacy. 
I cannot understand at all why New Zealanders should be prohibited from even seeing advertisements. What a fatuous bill! Under clause 15 the penalty will be 3 months in prison or a fine of $2500 if someone’s Internet site shows that somewhere in the world one might be paid to hold an embryo—to be a mother for someone else. There have been wet nurses and nannies for generations for centuries. In fact the ruling classes have often wanted someone else to do all the hard work of child bearing. We now say that that is to be criminalised! 
It will happen. New Zealanders will do it. They will go to the United States China or some Pacific Island country—somewhere where someone will carry a child for them—and they will pay the women handsomely. But this sanctimonious mob in this Parliament says: “Oh no we think that’s awful. We’ll ban that.” 
I know why there is an ACT party in this Parliament: because we are not bound by political correctness. We are not too scared to say it like it is. We stand up and ask why this measure is being put through. Why is clause 11 putting a legal restriction on sex selection of human embryos? Who is to say that New Zealand people will not do that anyway? It could easily be that shortly we will know exactly what environments in the womb or the uterus favour male sperm. It could easily be that shortly this matter will be right out of the hands of the politicians and the people will be able to decide. Then we will have the real decision—the decision as to what we do if people consistently favour one gender over the other. We do not know which one it will be but it is very likely that humans will work it out without the help of an all-wise all-knowing nanny Government. They will work out what to do if a sex imbalance emerges. We are watching that huge experiment happening in China right at this minute. 
This Government says it will ban sex selection in New Zealand but it knows that it cannot enforce that and it knows that people will find excuses. It is interesting as a lawyer to consider the sorts of arguments that might be put to a court on exactly what is a genetic disorder or disease. There are many propensities that are gender related and that people might argue they do not want their children to incur. I know for example that schizophrenia has a higher propensity in certain families than in others and that it is gender related. Will that be an excuse? I suspect it will. I suspect that the unhappy uncomfortable couple who are looking at a higher propensity to incur a certain disease will be able to walk around this restriction in exactly the same way as people have walked around our anti-abortion law by pretending to find serious mental risk when they want to justify an abortion. 
This measure is an exercise in futility. It is an exercise in smugness and sanctimony.