Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Rock sidesteps deeper issues

Health Minister Allan Rock has finally introduced draft legislation that would govern reproductive technologies in Canada. We applaud most proposals in the bill including its bans on human cloning, creating embryos for research purposes, gender selection and any form of reproduction for profit.

Although this issue has dragged on far too long without legislation being passed - it was in 1989 that a royal commission on reproductive technologies was appointed - Rock's proposal for nine more months of public discussion before a bill is finally reintroduced is not out of line. This area of scientific research has advanced a long way since the royal commission filed its report in 1983 and it's important to have the best legislation possible.

But this time, pass the bill! A previous attempt to legislate this area collapsed in 1997 when the government hastily called an election, leaving its bill on reproductive technologies to die on the order paper. As Preston Manning stated about the new bill: "This bill will be one of the most important that this 37th Parliament will examine." Indeed, reproductive technology is the area of society most in need of legislation.

Continuing to leave this area a vacuum will only create more problems for the future. Take the area of in vitro fertilization, for example. The first "test tube baby" was created nearly 20 years ago. In vitro fertilization has now become commonplace. One result is that thousands of frozen embryos have been created.

This is human life and it is repugnant that such embryos be destroyed. It is also repugnant, as Rock's draft legislation acknowledges, that those embryos be used for research. Here is an example of the difficulty of getting the horse back into the barn after it has escaped as well as the havoc that is created by letting the horse out in the first place.

The proposed bill is also problematic in that while it bans commercial surrogacy, it would allow surrogate motherhood as long as no money changes hands. Certainly the intention of banning further commercialization of reproductive technology is laudable. But commercialization is not the only issue that needs to be confronted.

One deeper issue is that any embryo ought to be treated as human from the moment of fertilization. Our society has abandoned this notion to its own peril. Because the federal government does not accept this basic notion, it is stuck making arbitrary distinctions of protecting life 14 days or 56 days after fertilization. Of course, if the government took the next logical step and banned abortions taking place more than 14 days after fertilization, it would be taking a huge step towards a more humane society. Don't, however, expect consistency from the federal government on this matter.

A second deeper issue is that each child has the right to be conceived in love by a father and mother, and to be raised, given the limits of what is possible and prudent, by that same father and mother. The widespread tendency today is to separate sex from procreation. Rock's draft bill doesn't challenge this, it merely accepts it as given. It accepts the prevailing mindset that people can have sex without the worry of procreation and that procreation can occur without sex.

Because Rock's bill is out of sync with traditional morality on these two foundational issues and because it assumes commercialization of reproduction is the main evil to be confronted, one has to wonder about its staying power. What is to stop some future government, which has witnessed the seemingly successful privatization of hospitals for example, to conclude that commercial reproduction is a good idea too? When that day arrives, one can expect to see all those horrid practices that today's health minister wants to outlaw suddenly being legalized.

There is much in Rock's bill that is good and a welcome stopgap to practices that sin against human dignity. But the underlying moral thinking is flawed and may well augur poorly for future control over reproductive technologies.

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