The ACT Attorney-General, Gary Humphries, has ordered a review of assisted reproductive technology. It would look at which technology is not covered by law and which should be. In part the review was prompted by the case of a Canberra woman who got an order in the Victorian Supreme Court recently giving her permission to take sperm from her dead husband’s body in the hope that she might get pregnant from it later.
The case raises, according to Mr Humphries, urgent ethical questions.
Mr Humphries said, “”There is a great danger of the technology pushing us; that just because something is possible we may be compelled to go with it.”
Already a sheep has been cloned. It cannot be far away that the technology is their for the cloning of humans. It might be that further technology will permit the cloning of body spare parts to overcome the problem of rejection.
The review is a welcome one. Review or not, it is likely that technology will drive a lot of what is done. It may be that the role of the law will not so much be a prohibitory one, but a role of determining rights and duties that flow from the creation of a child. The costs and duties of child-rearing; the question of which adults should raise the child and the rights of inheritance are all complicated by assisted reproduction.
Whether the law can succeed in prohibiting the use of reproductive technology, especially if it is relatively simple technology, is questionable. After all, it has very little control in determining the results of the old fashioned method of reproduction. Moreover, there is little point in the ACT legislating if recipients of the technology just have to hop over the border to get what they want and return here. That indicates the greater need to clarify the rights and duties which flow from the technology than to regulate its application.
That said, the public interest in reproductive technology is significant. It is too simple to say that the government has no business in regulating private matters. The public purse is exposed if parental duties are not clarified. Moreover, the medical technology is at least partly paid for by the public purse.
The review is a welcome one. It should inform the public about what technology is available and what is likely to be developed. It will pose questions about the rights of resulting children to have knowledge of their biological parents and the right of biological parents to remain anonymous or to have knowledge of their children.
The best interests of children should be paramount but that does not mean they should have an unfettered right to full knowledge of their origin. It has to be weighed against desires for anonymity by biological parents.
The review is to consult widely with members of the public, interested groups and the legal and medical professions. It is extremely unlikely that such a review will obtain a consensus with such fundamental questions. Mr Humphries has stressed the ethical questions. But many in society see reproduction in religious terms, and some would like to impose their view on the rest of society. Others, on the other hand, reject the idea of government impeding their right to have children by whatever means available.
Despite the obvious scope for bitter dispute, it is worthwhile having the debate and the review so we can come some informed decisions.