Schedule 3
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]
9:00 am
Dawn Primarolo (Minister of State (Public Health), Department of Health; Bristol South, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon for speaking to the amendments so clearly. I absolutely understand his views on this, which are on record. However, the amendments raise a series of important points, and as we start this debate around consent, they go to absolutely the key points.
The key principle of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was that gametes, including gametes used to create an embryo, should be stored or used only in accordance with the wishes of the man or woman who provided them. To remove any question of doubt concerning those wishes, the Act requires that consent to storage and use of the gametes and embryos must be given in writing. That is what the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon referred to in terms of “effective consent”, and that requirement is brought forward in schedule 3 to the Bill.
The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness touched lightly on United States case law. The principle of control by consent, rather than ownership, was taken from the recommendations of the Warnock committee, and I believe that that remains valid today. That is why we have continued with it.
Amendment No. 12 would allow consent to be given for posthumous storage and use by a man’s surviving wife or partner, if a clinician who was giving the couple treatment or advice on infertility at the time of the man’s death testified to the couple’s wish to have a child together. With the greatest respect, it cannot be automatically assumed that the deceased would have been willing for his gametes to be recovered, stored and then used by his partner after his death. That raises quite different issues, and is a very different situation from a couple seeking advice and treatment to have a child together in the expectation that they would raise that child together.
My difficulty is that, even if it were known that the deceased would have had concerns about the use of his sperm to conceive a child after his death, the amendment would render those concerns valueless. In such incredibly difficult circumstances, that cannot be allowed. The right to decide whether to pass on one’s biological heritage is a fundamental and it should not be taken away or superseded by the wishes of another person, even those of a surviving partner. The Government are firmly of the view that, in this context, the protection of an individual’s autonomy cannot be allowed to lapse, except in the very specific and narrowly defined circumstances set out in schedule 3.
I recognise, as I am sure every member of the Committee and of the House would, that becoming a parent is the most rewarding and probably the most overwhelming thing we can ever do. It is not difficult to understand how the loss of the chance to have a family that has been planned together can intensify the pain and grief felt at the sudden death of a loving partner. But it is surely right that if a child is conceived after the death of one of their parents, using that parent’s gametes, there must be no doubt whatever that it was the wish of the deceased that the child should be born. The decision to rest on written consent then becomes crucial.