Seanad debates

Thursday, 26 March 2015

Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of John CrownJohn Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

My two amendments to sections 9 and 11, taken together with this discussion, are fairly transparent. They are part of a bigger issue I see in other areas of our legislation. I am always troubled by the idea that we have differential adulthoods, whereby some adults have some rights that others do not based on how far into adulthood they are. There is some paternalism implicit in a decision to let some adults have access to donor-assisted human reproduction while others do not. I believe the State should view people as either adults or not, and discriminating against some adults by saying they are old enough to bear the consequences of donating gametes but not old enough to become a parent through donation, when one's more fertile peers are physically, biologically and legally capable of becoming parents, is a bit ludicrous. It is a bizarre and illogical situation. Perhaps we think a 20-year old is not capable of making a decision that can impact on their life or save the lives of others, but they can serve in the Army, they can die and be prosecuted for war crimes or donate kidneys. The Bill may let them contact their genetic parents or siblings but regards them as being at such a tender year that they cannot make a decision to become a parent themselves in the very manner which brought them into the world.

Perhaps it might be argued that donor-assisted human reproduction procedures, as a process, would be unnecessary for someone so young. In most cases that would be the case, but not in all, so let that be a medical decision, not a legal one. We are putting an unnecessary restriction into a Bill and formulating two different categories of adult, which I do not think is in accordance with the principles of natural justice.

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