The federal government is proposing strict rules over the way science helps some Canadians have babies, but it wants feedback before the draft legislation is voted on by MPs.
Health Minister Alan Rock
Photo CBC News
Human cloning would be outlawed, according to the suggested guidelines, along with the sale of human embryos.
Parents would also be prevented from picking whether to have boys or girls on a whim. Women could serve as surrogate mothers, as long as they were not paid.
People convicted of breaking the rules could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison, and face fines of up to $500,000.
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The draft
regulations were presented to the House of Commons committee on health, Thursday, by
federal Health Minister Allan Rock. "Simply because we can do something does not mean that we should," Rock said. "These issues raise questions which are not just technical or scientific but have a moral and ethical element," he added. The issues go to "the heart of the human condition," Rock said, and he invited Canadians across the country to share their views before the guidelines become law. "This draft legislation addresses something fundamental to the lives of many Canadians – the desire to have children and build a family," the minister said. "We want to make sure that reproductive technologies, which offer some women a better chance of having a child, are safe and that Canadians are able to make informed decisions about them." |
By introducing the legislation to a committee as a draft document instead of tabling it in the House of Commons first, there are more opportunities to amend it.
The committee is expected to study the legislation for the rest of the year, reporting back with proposed changes by the end of January.
The draft will eventually form the foundation of the country's first law on reproductive technology. Rock said he's not sure how long debate in the House will take, but hinted it might be another year or two.
The federal government has fallen far behind in its ability to regulate the rapidly advancing field of research, which in recent years has become more of an ethical minefield with each new discovery.
Despite a royal commission and previous bills, no law has been passed to govern the way babies are created. The Liberals tabled legislation in 1996, but didn't do anything with it. It died when a federal election was called a year later.
When the government formed a royal commission to study reproductive technology in 1989, procedures like cloning still seemed the stuff of science fiction.
Since the first Canadian was born using in vitro fertilization in 1983 – a controversial technique that many consider innocuous today – scientists have learned a great deal about how babies are created and how that might be controlled.
For some, those advances create a great difference between what can be done and what should be done.
"We worry about slippery slopes," said Mike Burgess, chair of biomedical ethics at the University of British Columbia. "We step onto something for one purpose and it allows us, because of social pressures in another direction, to move in ways that we don't want to move."
One example of such a concern is the ability researchers have developed to look at the genes of embryos. They hope doing so can help discover how diseases are inherited.
But it could also allow parents to select their babies based on the potential for disease, disability or even gender.
And with artificial insemination widely practised now, ethicists such as Burgess – and others with religious concerns – are troubled by what happens with unused embryos, which researchers value as a source of stem cells.
The health committee will be looking for public input before the final bill is drawn up. And those involved in the field will want to have their chance to talk to the committee members.
Dr. Victor Gomel is one who has a strong interest in what the law finally says. He led the team that produced Canada's first test-tube baby at Vancouver General Hospital in 1983.
"We want to make sure – basic researchers in the field want to make sure – that the legislators understand the fine differences between what should be allowed and what shouldn't," he said.
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