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

I move amendment No. 38:



In page 31, lines 17 to 26, to delete all words from and including "with" in line 17 down to and including line 26 and substitute the following:"with the information referred to under subsection (3) where the procedure has resulted in the pregnancy of the intending mother, the date on which the intending mother is expected to give birth or, where applicable, the information specified in subsection (5).".
This amendment seeks to limit the information sent to the Minister for Health to only information which relates to pregnancies that have occurred as a result of a DAHR procedure. Why would the Minister or any official of the Department of Health be interested in information which pertains to unsuccessful fertility treatments? What purpose would it serve to catalogue the personal tragedies of failed attempts at pregnancy? There is no reference in this Bill as to where all these data regarding treatments as opposed to births will be held or what might be done with them once they have been received. While there are rules regarding the data pertaining to those who have been born as a result of DAHR, there are no rules governing what is to be done with extraneous, unnecessary, intrusive data collection regarding something as sensitive and private as medically assisted fertility treatment.

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