Ms Emma O'Friel:

On the same subject, I do not see any question of assessing the risk or harm. Professor Hayes will know from psychology that one cannot even interview a child or do any experiment on him or her, even if it just a verbal interaction or questionnaire, without seriously scrutinising the ethical implications of any harm. The case we are discussing, however, was an experiment that involves children, but I do not see any assessment of harm. As was stated, we are dealing with what is here and now. What is here and now may be harmful, however. The train has come in and we are saying we need to legislate in order that it can carry on its journey, but we are not seriously scrutinising what is on board the train or where it came from. We know the origins, however, and we were told an amusing anecdote on RTÉ's "Vogue: Going it Alone". A woman, namely, a fertility counsellor rather than a doctor or a scientist, brought sperm from England through customs in Dublin Port and registered it as cattle sperm because there was no other category for it. It is meant to be amusing that it is just sperm, but I am just one sperm and one egg. We all are, and we are all donated. That cannot be separated. I understand we have to grasp what is here and now but before that, we need to examine all the various elements, not least the financial element.

On language, as Professor Hayes said, the term "donor" is used but it is a parent. One cannot write about donors, eggs and gametes as if they are just bits of tissue. They are the pieces that make a human being. They are not donated blood or just a tissue. They are the only elements in the nucleus of those two cells and they are me. I do not want to be called a gamete or a property. One can see in the brochures of the clinics the word "property". If I present to buy an egg from a woman down the road or from Ukraine, I sign to the effect that the egg is now my property, which is the language that is used. It is a human being that is being transferred as a commodity. It was the same problem in Ireland with adoptions, which we talked about as being commodified. We are doing the same in this case and we are saying it is okay. All our discussion has been about this commodity, but it is a human life. One must look a child in the eyes and say: "This is you and this is your life." No matter how much we legislate with this language, none of it acknowledges the harm and the human emotional impact of all of this. Identity is not just a bit of paper. Rather, it is fragile and can be easily damaged.

There is a need to go back to the beginning, I am afraid, to look at the practice and the money involved. Kidneys and blood are donated. Donating a kidney can involve expenses but there is no compensation for that and that is for a reason. The incentive is removed. We have all of these international conventions, such as the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, that forbid financial gain from the sale of body parts. How does that fit in? There is also the Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine which clearly states that biomedicine brings great hope but also poses a major threat. That convention also forbids the sale of body parts for financial gain or advantage. I do not see any acknowledgement of that here.