MPs Call for Re-write on Laws of Creation--UK (also Australia)

[Gloria]

4//The Scotsman, UK Thursday, 24th March 2005

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=313952005



MPs CALL FOR RE-WRITE ON LAWS OF CREATION



Karen McVeigh


MPs will today recommend giving the go-ahead to couples to create "designer babies" and allowing the experimental implantation of human embryos into animals, as part of a radical shake-up in fertility laws.

If accepted, it could allow couples, in consultation with their doctors, to select embryos on the basis of their sex, to weed out genetic imperfections, or to create a "saviour sibling" - a child that can provide life- saving treatment to an ill brother or sister.



The science and technology select committee report, which will also recommend the scrapping of regulators, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority, has criticised the precautionary approach used up until now, instead arguing that new technologies should be used until harm is proved.



But late last night, a few hours before the study was due to be officially published, half of the committee launched a scathing attack on its findings and condemned a "rush to publish" by the other members.

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5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia March 25, 2005

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Banned-choosing-a-babys-sex/2005/03/24/1111525296888.html?oneclick=true



BANNED: CHOOSING A BABY’S SEX

By Julie Robotham, Medical Editor

Couples will no longer be able to choose the sex of their baby in Sydney fertility clinics, after Australia's highest ethics authority ruled the procedure was not in the interests of resulting children.



But critics say the clampdown - which in effect ends non-medical sex selection in Australia - reflects religious and other partisan interests and does not represent public attitudes towards the increasingly popular procedure.






(SNIP)



In its report to the council, the ethics committee said "admission to life should not be conditional upon a child being a particular sex" and using the technology might undermine the parent-child relationship. But it backed sex selection in families with an inherited genetic disorder that affected only one sex.



The guidelines were drafted by a specially convened sub-committee headed by Bernadette Tobin, a bioethicist. Dr Tobin, who could not be reached for comment last night, is director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics, a research centre within the Australian Catholic University that tries to bring "a Catholic perspective to all its endeavours".

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