Abstract
This note suggests that, viewed from a feminist perspective, the reforms contained in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 represent a missed opportunity to re-think the appropriate model of regulation to govern fertility treatment and embryology research in the UK. It argues that reform of the legislation was driven largely by the government’s desire to avoid re-igniting controversies over the legal status of the embryo and abortion and to maintain Britain’s position at the forefront of embryo research and related biotechnologies. It also highlights the importance of media debates, which were highly selective, to the reform process, and suggests that in order to inject feminist values into the process of legislative reform, feminists need to become more media savvy. In the short term, it suggests that there is little prospect of a radical re-thinking of the appropriate ethico-legal response to the wide variety of family forms that reproductive technologies potentially enable, much less of considering our ethical obligations to the new forms of embryos that are now permitted by the 2008 Act. In the meantime, however, it argues that these issues provide productive opportunities for feminist legal theorists to address questions that have been erased or obscured in the course of the 2008 reforms.
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Notes
R v Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, ex parte Blood [1997] 2 All ER 687; Evans vUnited Kingdom (2008) 46 EHRR 34; Rose v Secretary of State for Health and Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority [2003] 2 FLR 962.
R (Quintavalle) v Secretary of State for Health [2003] 2 All ER 113; R (on the application of Quintavalle) v Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority [2005] 2 All ER 555.
SI 2004/1511; SI 2007/1523. The latter regulations implemented Directive 2004/23EC on setting standards of quality and safety for the donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of human tissues and cells [2004] OJ L102/48, which signaled the growing impact of EU legislation in this field.
See http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2007-08/humanfertilisationandembryology.html for details of the amendments (accessed 29 September 2009).
Other changes not discussed here include extensions to the statutory storage period for gametes and embryos, the insertion of a year long ‘cooling’ off period should a gamete provider wish to withdraw consent to the use of an embryo created with their gametes, and reforms to how voluntary bodies which set up surrogacy arrangements may recoup costs.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Disclosure of Donor Information) Regulations 2004, supra n 3.
See R (Quintavalle) v Secretary of State for Health, supra n 2.
Schedule 2 para 3(5) of the 1990 Act permitted the mixing of human sperm with hamster eggs to test the fertility of sperm provided the resulting mixture was immediately destroyed.
The animal suffering inflicted by attempts at cloning prior to Dolly’s birth, her early demise and a catalogue of disabilities imposed on other animals are now well documented (Fox 2006).
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I would like to thank Ed Bailey, Julie McCandless and Jean McHale who have all influenced my thinking on this legislation.
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Fox, M. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008: Tinkering at the Margins. Fem Leg Stud 17, 333–344 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-009-9129-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-009-9129-2