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Canadian ART bill to be reintroduced

Dr. Kirsty Horsey

Progress Educational Trust

17 January 2004

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[BioNews, London] The Canadian federal government is to reintroduce legislation on assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and related matters. Last October, bill C-13, entitled 'an Act respecting assisted human reproduction', was passed by the Canadian House of Commons by 149-109 votes, after almost ten years of debate and despite vigorous pro-life opposition.

The Canadian legislation, which must still pass through the Senate to become law, bans human cloning (for both reproductive and therapeutic purposes), the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos, sex selection of embryos for non-medical reasons, payments to women acting as surrogates, payment for donated gametes and the buying or selling of human embryos. It also regulates the collection, alteration, manipulation or treatment of any human reproductive material for the purpose of creating an embryo, storage of reproductive material and information about donors. Under the Act, donors must give fully informed written consent before their gametes or embryos are used, and children born following donation will be entitled to receive medical information about the donors. Donors will be identifiable only if they consent to be so. In addition, the bill allows embryonic stem (ES) cell research to take place on surplus IVF embryos, but prohibits the creation of embryos specifically for stem cell derivation. The bill also establishes a regulatory body, the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada (AHRAC), which will license, monitor and enforce the new law and store data on ARTs, in a similar way to the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

But the Senate had not passed the bill by the time former prime minister Jean Chretien retired and prorogued Parliament in November. Paul Martin, the new Prime Minister, previously voted in favour of the bill and when Parliament resumes in February, is likely to send it back to the Senate for consideration. Mario Lague, a spokesman for the Prime Minister, said that he expected the bill would be reintroduced without amendment at the point where its passage was halted, which is about three-quarters of the way through the legislative process. It is widely expected that Martin will call an election sometime after April. This would mean that the Government must pass bill C-13 before the election, otherwise, the process would have to start from scratch again after the election. A spokesman for Health Canada said 'we are working to pass this legislation in a timely manner'.



© Copyright Progress Educational Trust

Reproduced with permission from BioNews, an email and online sources of news, information and comment on assisted reproduction and genetics.

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Date Added: 17 January 2004   Date Updated: 12 September 2004
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