Few people may be aware that the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill is now before a Select Committee, and that submissions close on 17 February. Even fewer people may realise that this Bill fails to address most of the serious issues raised by assisted reproductive technology (ART).

A new report on ART, Protecting Our Future,* was published on 28 January 1999. It gives a concise, in-depth survey of the ART area, and concludes that New Zealand has one of the least regulated ART environments in the Western world. What's more, the government's new Bill would not make a significant difference.

Since 1984, when the first baby was born from a frozen embryo, professional groups and many other organisations have repeatedly urged the government to act. Late last year, the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill finally made it into Parliament. A more comprehensive Private Member's Bill by Labour MP Dianne Yates is being considered alongside the government's Bill. Indeed, the government appears to have hastily drafted its own Bill partly to be seen to be doing something after Yates took her initiative. (For more information about Yates' Bill, see Protecting Our Future.)

The government's Bill covers a strange hotchpotch of issues. Its main impact would be to enable people who know they were born through sperm and/or egg donation to find out where their genes come from. Their parents and the donors could also get information.

Of course, this means records must be kept. Currently there is nothing in the law about keeping any donation records. The Bill requires providers to collect and keep information about donors and also any resulting children, then send the basic details to the Registrar-General. At long last, some attention is being paid to the rights of the children born through ART.

But none of these rights will apply to anyone born before the Bill comes into force, or through do-it-yourself donation. What's more, the Bill sits very oddly alongside our adoption legislation. It would give sperm donors better information and access rights than birth mothers or other birth relatives of adopted children.

The contrast with adoption law highlights the biggest problem with this Bill: it's yet another piecemeal attempt to deal with isolated aspects of ART. For example, it bans human cloning and trading in sperm, eggs or embryos - the "raw material" for making babies. But it says nothing about trading the essential "production process" of gestation and birth. The new Bill is the first piece of New Zealand legislation to mention surrogacy. But it does so only as part of defining who is and is not a "donor".

New Zealand has no laws whatsoever dealing specifically with surrogacy. So far we've tacitly left it up to ethics committees and the thoroughly outdated 1955 Adoption Act, tempered by the "put-it-right-later" 1985 Adult Adoption Information Act. No one knows what would happen if a conflict over surrogacy came to court - for example, if something went wrong, or too many parents wanted the baby, or no one wanted it (as has repeatedly happened overseas).

Legal experts say it is only a matter of luck that this has not yet happened here. There is anecdotal evidence of a growing number of babies being born "to order" and handed over at birth, in some cases for payment, without involving known ART providers. Most people may not be aware that last year, the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction (NECAHR) decided to allow a fertility clinic to go ahead with a case of non-commercial IVF surrogacy - where a woman carries an inserted embryo to term for others to parent. It says it will look at future applications on a case-by-case basis.

The surrogacy issue highlights the fact that NECAHR is still the only New Zealand body which has any specific responsibility for the ART area. But NECAHR has no power to monitor ART, ensure its safety, impose sanctions on providers, or lead public discussion. The new Bill does nothing to address this.

There are now plenty of overseas models for comprehensive legislation regulating ART. For example, a new law has just come into force in Victoria, Australia, after a lengthy and thorough consultation process.

The Victorian law says that four principles must be applied when any decision is being made. The first is that the welfare and interests of any persons born as a result of treatment are paramount. This is why Victoria now forbids a wide range of practices, including commercial surrogacy, and sets other limits on what services can be offered and who can access ART.

Victoria is also setting up an Infertility Treatment Authority to administer every area related to ART, including treatment, access to treatment, research, records, and the storage of sperm, eggs and embryos. The only reason our government has given for not setting up a similar body here is the cost.

Protecting Our Future puts forward a strong case for why New Zealand should follow Victoria's lead and establish an effective national body to regulate ART. It also includes Maori and Pacific Islands views on ART, showing why we need laws specifically tailored to New Zealand requirements. It all adds up to a strong argument for much more comprehensive legislation and regulation than this piecemeal new Bill can provide.

*Protecting Our Future, by Sandra Coney and Anne Else, with contributions from Nadja Tollemache, Lorna Dyall, Moera Douthett and Sara Bennett.
Available for $20 plus postage from Women's Health Action, PO Box 9947, Newmarket,
ph. 09-520-5295, or order by email from mckayl@womens_health.org.nz.

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