Article Text
Abstract
In Canada, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act received royal assent on 29 March 2004. The approach proposed by the federal government responds to Canadians’ strong desire for an enforceable legislative framework in the field of reproduction technologies through criminal law. As a result of the widening gap between the rapid pace of technological change and governing legislation, a distinct need was perceived to create a regulatory framework to guide decisions regarding reproductive technologies.
In this article the three main topics covered in the new legislation are commented on: cloning, germline therapy, and purchase of gametes and embryos. Some important issues also covered in the new legislation, such as privacy and access to information, data protection, identity of donors, and inspection, will not be addressed.
- CIHR, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- CE, Council of Europe
- DI, donor insemination
- IBC, international bioethics committee
- IVF, in vitro fertilisation
- SCH, Standing Committee on Health
- UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
- WHO, World Health Organization
- cloning
- gametes
- reproductive technologies
- germline therapy
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
-
↵* In the parliament of Canada, the order paper is the official daily agenda of the House of Commons. The order paper lists all the items that may be brought forward in the House of Commons on that day.
-
↵† Access to medical and/or personal information about donor(s), associated registries, information related to success rates, and legal standards for the protection of the citizen in different cultural traditions of medical secrecy, ownership of medical data, patient autonomy, and professional liability are examples of matters that should be analysed in future work.
-
↵‡ This is not the state of the law in the Canadian jurisprudence. In Tremblay v Daigle, [1989] 2 SCR 530, it was submitted that granting the fetus the right to life from the moment of conception sets up a potential conflict with the rights of women to personal dignity, bodily integrity, and autonomy. The court held that the right of women to personal dignity, bodily integrity, and autonomy had to be protected and privileged in those circumstances. That jurisprudence is in concordance with the position held in R v Morgentaler, [1988] 1SCR 30.
-
↵‡‡ This is a case which recognises the genetic provider’s right to choose or consent to the gift or discarding of frozen embryos, refusing to consider them either person or property.
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Reproductive cloning in humans and therapeutic cloning in primates: is the ethical debate catching up with the recent scientific advances?
- Why the apparent haste to clone humans?
- What exactly is an exact copy? And why it matters when trying to ban human reproductive cloning in Australia
- Cell phoney: human cloning after Quintavalle
- Is a consensus possible on stem cell research? Moral and political obstacles
- Just another reproductive technology? The ethics of human reproductive cloning as an experimental medical procedure
- Research Ethics, Science Policy, and Four Contexts for the Stem Cell Debate
- Reproductive cloning combined with genetic modification
- Law and policy in the era of reproductive genetics
- UN delays decision on human cloning