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:15906] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I was slightly reassured by the previous speaker Sue Kedgley for the Greens on this Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill by something that I am sure she did not intend when she described the officials as having been hell-bent against regulation. That is not what I have discerned from reading the bill. I speak for myself and for a number of my colleagues. I cannot say that I speak for the ACT party because we are divided on this bill. When I look at the bill I see that it is a sickening exhibit of sentimentality. It is a typical example of the kind of—I know that I am not allowed to use the word “hypocrisy” in relation to members of this House—the hypocrisy that is exhibited by the establishment when it has a dreadful social problem and instead of addressing it decides to focus on a trivial and an almost non-existent problem as a smokescreen. What we have here is a whole lot of pious cant about the dignity and rights of individuals about the protection of health safety and welfare about the importance of knowing one’s genetic origins about the importance of regulating unacceptable behaviour about dealing with nasty commerce and donated cells and about informing people of their genetic origins. 
That cant comes from a Parliament that not only tolerates but facilitates thousands of births every year of kids who will never know their fathers—kids who have natural fathers they will never know because our welfare system is determined to sponsor single-parent families without responsibility. This Parliament is running a welfare system that does not mind that kids are being born every day with foetal alcohol syndrome to entirely unsuitable women—to people who would never have children if in fact the normal social sanctions were applied when they were irresponsible. This is a Parliament that has presided over introducing a legal system that means that thousands of babies are born who will never know their father. The normal social sanctions are the sorts of regimes that apply in most societies whereby people do not bear children until they can take care of them and until they know that they are able to give them education a stable home life and grandparents—all the things that those of us who have been blessed with that kind of upbringing take for granted and that we now in all sincerity have abandoned for a good chunk of our population. By taking from families that are working and by structuring a welfare system that gives funding to children to have children we are providing for all the things in our welfare system that this legislation suddenly states are utterly unacceptable where there is assisted reproduction. 
I listened to the members who spoke so piously in favour of this bill talk about the importance of the embryo. They are scared of Frankenstein’s monster. One would think that it is unlikely that any parent involved in an assisted reproduction process will not be very anxious. It is highly unlikely that there will be a single woman or man involved in the process who will not have the utmost anxiety about the best interests of the child that is produced. These will be the most wanted children in New Zealand. These will be children who do not need any official to look after them these baby children around whom risks are taken. It may be that experimental procedures are invoked but what is the risk of those kinds of experiments where the medical profession has its hands deep in them compared with the risk to the number of children who are conceived in a drunken or drug-induced passion? Kids are being born when conception was a complete blur and the entire pregnancy has been chemically affected. What does the Government do about that? It pays for it. It says that there is no consequence as a result of doing that. There is not even a power to intervene. Yet this House in a great rush of sickly sentiment is saying we should spend time on supervising these births.