My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his Motion, which has precipitated this debate. These matters are so important that it is vital that this House debates them extensively. Therefore, I welcome this evening’s debate.
When I looked at these regulations for the first time a couple of weeks ago my initial reaction was that they raised a whole raft of new, very important ethical issues. Having studied them in detail and listened to tonight’s debate, I am now not convinced that that is the case. I say that because when noble Lords started to debate the Bill that became the 2008 Act, we had a considerable number of debates about omissions from that Bill. That Bill amended the 1990 Act. The 2008 Act was criticised for not containing a sufficient basis of principle. However, the principles which the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, set down in her work back in 1990 endure and govern all decisions in this field; for example, that the welfare of the child should be paramount and the treatment of embryos should be of the highest order. I say that so that we do not take these regulations completely out of context, as I think there is a considerable danger that we might do that.
I make that point because I listened to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Patten and Lord Bates, with great care. Both of them raised important issues but those were extensively debated in this House during the passage of the 2008 Act. We discussed openness about donation and came to the conclusion, after considerable discussion, that that should be encouraged but that it is a decision best made by families. We debated the need for a father extensively and reached a conclusion with which the noble Lord, Lord Bates, disagrees, but none the less represented the view of this House and another place.
This matter has become more important for reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with reproductive medicine but concern developments in other areas of science. For example, survival rates from childhood leukaemia are now considerably higher than they have ever been previously. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, talked about our ageing society. I have a further statistic, which I hope is as engaging as the one he mentioned. It is now reckoned that every day the average life expectancy of an individual increases by 15 minutes, so people are living longer and a considerable number of them will live very long lives. A life span that we now consider represents old age may, in the not too distant future, be viewed as representing middle age. That is the context in which we should consider these regulations.
I understand that when the regulations came before the Merits Committee, noble Lords asked whether records of donated gametes, embryos and donors were not more likely to be lost if the current 10-year period were extended to 55 years, as proposed. I note that the review period remains 10 years. That important fact may have been overlooked. Because of the ending of donor anonymity and the new provision for the creation of human admixed embryos for research, never for implantation in a woman, that was introduced in the 2008 Act, clinics, the HFEA and others are required to have much higher standards of record-keeping than has ever been the case previously. Individual practitioners and clinics face severe penalties if they fail in that regard.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to intergenerational donation. Noble Lords will have seen the briefing from the Turner Syndrome Society and will have read about some of the cases. We are not talking about people who are being selfish as regards wishing that their children might have a family in due course. Many of those people are taking a very considered and thoughtful approach to the matter. The society cited the example of the lady who did not wish her daughter to be forced to contemplate becoming pregnant at the age of 18 or 19; she wanted her to be able to do that at a later stage, as other young women do when they enter settled relationships. I understand entirely the concern of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, about confusion over identity. However, it is currently permissible for a woman to donate embryos or to be a surrogate for her sister. Many families do that because they wish to have children. There is not yet any evidence that the children born in those circumstances are any more confused about their identity than others because the relevant decision has been taken in a completely different atmosphere of openness and sensitivity than was the case in the past.
As regards removing the upper age limit, I understand entirely the concern that children could be born to old mothers. However, I believe that that issue was first discussed shortly after the birth of Louise Brown, who was born in Boundary Park Hospital, Oldham, and has been discussed ever since then. That is why I think there is no absolute cut-off limit. The matter should be kept under review and is one to which Parliament should return from time to time. We should not forget that the decision to allow somebody to have fertility treatment is always an individual clinical decision, which always includes an assessment of the welfare of the child who will be born as a result. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that there is a case for there to be more guidance but I do not believe that these regulations in themselves introduce sufficiently new and substantial ethical issues that they should not be passed by this House.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Statutory Storage Period for Embryos and Gametes) Regulations 2009
Proceeding contribution from
Baroness Barker
(Liberal Democrat)
in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 21 October 2009.
It occurred during Debates on delegated legislation on Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Statutory Storage Period for Embryos and Gametes) Regulations 2009.
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