Mad scientists be warned: the freedom to clone people at your leisure may be coming to an end.
Legislation controlling reproductive technology in Canada has been imminent for more than a decade after a 1,300-page royal commission urged a law to control assisted human reproduction.
But frustrated observers say that throwing away all those test tubes and Bunsen burners may be a little premature.
Bill C-13, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, had its first reading on Oct. 9, 2002. A year later, the bill is awaiting its third and final reading before being passed on to the Senate. A group of MPs, dubbed “The God Squad” because of the religious grounds for their opposition, have been working hard to delay the process.
The bill would ban human cloning, ban payment for human sperm and egg donation as well as for-profit surrogate-womb contracts, and establish an agency to regulate fertility clinics.
The controversy centres on the clause that would allow the use of surplus embryos from fertility treatments for stem cell research, embryos that would otherwise be regarded as medical waste.
“The God Squad’s” opposition to the bill is based on the age-old debate about when during fertilization human life is created. They equate the destruction of embryos with the destruction of human life.
A recent survey conducted by the polling company, Pollara, indicates that 57 per cent of Canadians approve the use of human embryos for stem cell research and 64 per cent agree the federal government should provide funding for scientific research.
Embryonic research has been common in Canadian fertility clinics since 1987. There are guidelines that forbid the creation of embryos for research through the Canadian Institute of Health Research but restrictions only pertain to the work the CIHR funds.
Despite having the support of the majority of Canadians, the bill remains bogged down in legislative red tape because of the political musings of a few Liberal backbenchers and Canadian Alliance MPs. The bill would impose more restrictive regulations on embryonic research; however if the manoeuvres of these pro-life MPs are successful, it would allow for fewer limitations on the research they chastise.
Research could continue but would be unregulated in the private sector. Perhaps the clones that Senator Mac Harb says are already walking among us, will actually become a reality. If Parliament does not succeed in passing the bill, Canadian researchers in the federally funded Stem Cell Network are prepared to go ahead with embryonic stem cell research by the end of the year.
Canada is in a minority among developed countries with no regulation of reproductive technology. Bill C-13 is an important piece of legislation that removes the commercial nature of assisted reproduction and still allows for important medical research. The personal religious attitudes of a few MPs should not take precedence over the desires of their constituents.
—Carly Stagg