Hutchison Paul: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Hutchison Paul: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:16358] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the title and commencement of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill which I believe has the very same name as the bill introduced by Dianne Yates back in 1996. In my view it is quite appropriate that that name remain. Dianne Yates has certainly shown extraordinary perseverance over the years. Although in 1998 the Government of the time had a bill called the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill it seems to me only fitting that the title of this bill which has been ushered through for 8 long years and has finally come to fruition should give the sense of what the bill is about—and fairly and squarely it is about human assisted reproductive technology. 
I think it is worthwhile mentioning—while strictly speaking to the title of course—that it was in 1979 that Steptoe and Edwards presided over the first test-tube baby which really heralded this new age of reproductive technology. It was a particularly fascinating procedure for a variety of reasons. Firstly here was a provincial gynaecologist teaming up with a scientist from Cambridge. The provincial gynaecologist had wonderful technical knowledge and a view of the concept of retrieving eggs and sperm but did not have the expertise to know how they could be fertilised incubated then put back into the uterus successfully. It was the scientist Robert Edwards who had gained tremendous experience of tissue culture over many years and had experience in animals as well who knew how that might take place. It was a momentous occasion when it did take place because it opened up a totally new world of assisted reproductive technology. Prior to that literally millions of couples right around the world had no hope that they might be able to have their own biological babies. 
I remember 3 years later going to a conference in Melbourne—the Asian and Oceanic Congress of Obstetrics and Gynaecology—where much to my amazement 99 percent of the deliberations were on that exciting new reproductive technology. There was one paper given by the Indians that was on human sterilisation. I marvelled at the thought that the Indian subcontinent which had doubled its population—reaching towards a billion—from 1947 to that time in 1979 had enormous problems of population control and needed to have good contraceptive techniques and on the other hand the Asian and Oceanic group of reproductive experts were totally absorbed with that amazing new technology which at the time had given rise to fewer than something like 15 or 20 births. 
Since then that technology has adapted through the years into many different forms and shapes so that now we have to think of the mind-boggling possibilities that could occur in the next 20 years or so. For that reason the title is absolutely appropriate because all of them involve assisted reproductive technology. What is extraordinary is that we have seen the debate in the United States about stem cell research and the possibilities there but when we take the next step to the genetic manipulations that could take place clearly there will arise a great new brave world.