Patrick Hennessy and Beezy Marsh
London
Telegraph
Sunday, December 10, 2006
A child's need for a father will no longer be a consideration
when a woman seeks fertility treatment, ministers will say this
week.
The move – which comes despite widespread public opposition
and which will give single women and lesbians the right to treatment
– forms part of a shake-up of Britain's embryology laws.
One of the key proposals would allow research on test-tube embryos
that were part-human, part-animal — referred to as "chimeras".
Caroline Flint, the Health Minister: ‘the over-arching
aim is to pursue the common good’
The changes, which ministers say have "fundamental social,
legal and ethical aspects", are set out in a Department of
Health "command paper" seen by The Sunday Telegraph.
Homosexual couples will have the same parental rights as heterosexuals
and, for the first time, all parents will be banned from choosing
the sex of their baby for non-medical reasons.
However, embryos will be able to be screened for genetic abnormalities
"which may lead to serious medical conditions, disabilities
or miscarriage".
Screening will also be expressly permitted to identify a "tissue
match for a sibling suffering a life-threatening illness",
but the document rules out "family balancing" and adds
that most people surveyed in a consultation exercise believed
"this should not be a matter of choice open to parents".
advertisementThe creation of combined human-animal embryos under
licence will be popular among stem-cell researchers, including
a team from the North East England Stem Cell Institute, which
has submitted plans to create a human-cow chimera embryo. However,
it will be bitterly contested by reproductive ethics campaigners
who brand such ideas "abhorrent".
The aim of the shake-up is to bring the 1990 Human Fertilisation
and Embryology Act into line with scientific advances and to make
sure the law is "fit for purpose in the early 21st century".
Caroline Flint, the health minister, claims in her foreword: "The
over-arching aim is to pursue the common good through a system
broadly acceptable to society."
She proposes doing away with the current regulatory bodies, the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue
Authority, and replacing them with a Regulatory Authority for
Tissue and Embryos (Rate). Some medical advances will be outlawed,
including the possible creation of a child by combining genetic
material of two women, which would render males redundant altogether.
Robert Whelan criticised plans
However, the law obliging clinics to consider a child's "need
for a father" is to be scrapped – despite backing from
the public for the present system. However, the need to take account
of the "welfare of the child" before treatment is given
will stay.
Robert Whelan, the deputy director of Civitas, the institute
for the study of civil society, criticised the plans to give single
mothers the right to fertility treatment.
"It is grossly irresponsible to deliberately bring a child
into the world in circumstances which will leave it at a disadvantage,"
he said.
"The people who engage in this sort of activity see children
as an accessory and something they can have as a right. The fact
that the child will suffer is secondary."
In other changes, private companies which provide sperm to women
over the internet will be regulated for the first time and charities
and other non-profit-making organisations will be able to advertise
surrogacy services.
Sperm donors will get "access [to] limited, non-identifying
information about children conceived as a result of their donations".
They will also, "in some circumstances", have the right
to be informed when their identifying details are provided to
their children when they reach 18.
Donor-conceived children can find out if they have siblings conceived
by the same method when they reach 18.
Another change will affect storage of embryos. This can currently
be done for five years as long as neither parent withdraws consent.
The Government proposes extending this period to 10 years and
also to introduce a one-year "cooling-off period" where
an embryo can still be stored if one parent withdraws consent.
The paper, expected on Friday, will set out the Government's
plans ahead of a draft Bill next year.
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