Science and Technology Committee

SURROGACY AND DONATION

• “Why are Aids-resistant genes so important to the World Community and not just to the Aids Community?”

• “Going through a donor cycle puts the woman under a lot of stress and considering that she has a higher susceptibility to illness because of her HIV there is not a high incentive to go through a cycle. The payment of donors should be a possibility, though other options should first be explored.”

• “What would have happened in Germany had Hitler been able to do this?”

• “The only justifiable reason for creating any embryo is to bring it to full term, and cherish it.”

CONSENT AND CONFIDENTIALITY

• “Issues of consent should be respected to the letter, but I am much more concerned for the rights of children. Should children be conceived after the death of a parent? Is this what we mean by fatherhood?”

• “In 2003 the question of written consent is specifically dispensed with by an amendment to the HFEA? Could this amendment be provided as a quick link?”

• “Egg storage is an accepted procedure and is resulting in healthy babies. The harvesting and freezing of human eggs is of immense interest to the scientific world involved in embryonic stem cell research…This aspect of the technology is proof that egg freezing is indeed a reality”

NEW FERTILITY TREATMENTS

• “ Every child’s right to have a father, and that this right takes precedence over any a prospective mother might have to bear children. The scope of this Act should be broadened to outlaw this sort of “anonymous… introduction service”. This should be done as a matter of urgency.”

• “Do we have no duty to the welfare of the children these new technologies produce? Some children will have a hard time when they discover their father was selected and paid for over the internet”

• “Frozen Eggs are a different ethical consideration to frozen embryos, as the former can be disposed of without any need to get involved in beginning of life ethical discussions.
  Harvesting of eggs does make serious physical demands on a woman, and her body resources might be best directed towards fighting the cancer which, unlike fertility treatment, is life threatening.”
• “With regard to embryo splitting, the technology has received some negative press lately with doctors offering it for less than ethically acceptable uses. There is no significant benefit from allowing for it, it might be better to regulate it until a bona fide use might re-open the question of embryo splitting”

• “As our society has decided that homosexual relationships are not morally deviant and that studies have shown that children with lesbian mothers develop in the same way as children in heterosexual relationships, I can see no reason why [this scenario] would not be ethically acceptable once the technology allows for it.”

• “There is no consent from the egg donor to extract the eggs. On the other hand, a potentially resulting child might face harmful identity problems when confronted with her genetic background.”

• “Once nuclear transfer has become a procedure that can safely be undertaken with human cells, there seems to be no ethical problem with this scenario. The woman who intends to raise the child is the same woman who carries it to term and also the same woman who is responsible for half of the child’s. Human eggs are generally not considered to have significant moral status”

SCREENING AND THERAPY

• “High time that these discriminatory practices are abolished in every field of life. In our country, there seems to be more discrimination against the male these days, hence all those poor protesting fathers sitting up on cranes.”

• “The problem centres on when life begins. Clearly a life has already begun for PGD to be carried out. A “diagnosis” is impossible in the absence of an individual who is thus diagnosed. I have a serious genetic condition which means I am a full time wheelchair user. I suggest that my right to exist is no less than that of people who have no such condition. PGD eliminates those like me, solely because they are like me. Eliminating disability is laudable.”

GENERAL COMMENTS

• “The importance of clearly documenting, in the regulations themselves, the intententions and reasons behind particular conclusions and restrictions on the use of technology. Without such safeguarding, the technology utilised for perfectly acceptable reasons could then slide down the proverbial slippery slope and be used for much less tolerable ones.”

• “With a reduction in the number of GPs and the high costs of a medical degree course, will this put more students off becoming GPs unless addressed?”

• ”Pembrey suggested that sensitive issues were best resolved between “the medical professional who is bringing their expertise and the couple who are bringing their own experience”. This kind of attitude worries me. The business of everybody is the welfare of society as a whole, not just the wishes of the individual. The big problem is – who should make the final decisions?”

• “The Modernist view would be that experts are those how understand that “facts” and the only ones in a position to make “objective” decisions. The postmodern view would be everyone should be given a say, even if we know nothing about the subject beyond our own “feelings”. Scientists are currently undervalued for the expertise and insight which they offer.”

• “We should not leave these huge ethical issues to self interested ‘experts’. Scientists must be accountable to public opinion.”

• “Any scientific advance to help repair damage or abnormalities is to be welcomed, if it does not affect the life of anyone else, to do anything which could not happen normally is essentially alien to any theistic point of view, and I believe potentially dangerous”