Seanad debates

Thursday, 26 March 2015

Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Jim WalshJim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I said earlier in this debate that I was conflicted as to whether we should remove sections 4 to 42, inclusive, on donor-assisted human reproduction until there has been a full discussion on the ethics of donor-assisted human reproduction and until the Government proposes comprehensive regulation governing the whole area of assisted human reproduction. I was conflicted as to whether to make that proposal or whether to submit an amendment that would confine donor-assisted human reproduction to a husband and wife married couple. The reason for this is that this Bill does not regulate AHR fully, but only some aspects of it and in a piecemeal fashion. Assisted human reproduction will still take place in an unregulated environment and without the influence of any independent regulatory authority. The Bill only deals with parentage issues and access to limited donor related information. Its parentage provisions give full legal effect to whatever donor-assisted human reproduction has already been performed but do not regulate the circumstances or facilities in which the donor-assisted reproduction is performed.

The Bill also ignores the fact that assisted human reproduction is an international and commercial business, with gametes and embryos being traded between overseas bio-banks and facilities in this State. For example, the Bill does not require that donor gametes and embryos used in donor-assisted human reproduction in Ireland be harvested and stored in facilities that fall within the reach and operate under the scrutiny of Irish law. Before introducing laws that radically re-imagine parentage, relatedness, kinship and identity, Ireland should have the chance for a proper social conversation about all these matters. Do children have a right to their natural identity and parentage? Do children have a right to a parent-child relationship with their genetic parents? This conversation about ethics, globalised commercialised donor-assisted human reproduction, genetic relatedness, the right to know, etc. has not taken place because the Government has sought to rush this legislation which only deals partially with what is a huge ethical issue. That is the reason I have opposed all of these sections and, as a fallback, I seek to restrict the Bill in a number of ways we have yet to come to.

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