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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

The noble Lord, Lord Alton has set out a range of concerns about these provisions. While I cannot support him on all of them, I join him in expressing a considerable degree of worry about the idea of using a saviour sibling as a source of organs for transplantation. That is the subject of Amendment No. 35. The whole concept of a saviour sibling lies on the borders of ethical acceptability. The idea of creating a particular child as a means to someone else’s ends devalues that person as an individual. Nor should we ignore the psychological effect that this knowledge may have on the person in later life, something to which the noble Lord rightly drew our attention. Many of us are prepared to reconcile ourselves to the notion of the saviour sibling because of the benefit brought to the other sibling, who would otherwise suffer or die. We are also willing to accept the process because the donation of cord blood does no harm to the donor sibling. Some of us—I am one—are willing to go further and countenance the donation of regenerative tissue such as bone marrow on the ground that, although invasive to the donor, the procedure should not, in normal circumstances, result in lasting harm. However, the donation of an organ, which is what the phrase ““or other tissue”” implies, is of a different order altogether. Organ donation results in lasting harm. While I have no objection to an adult taking an informed and voluntary decision to sacrifice a kidney, for example, to save the life of a close relation, it does not seem to me that the state has any right to raid the body of a child for any part of him that will not naturally regenerate. The state is centre-stage here. As I understand it, if there is ever a question of a child donating tissue, the Human Tissue Authority is legally charged with taking that decision under the 2006 regulations. Of course, it must do so on the basis of the common law test of ““best interests””, but ““best interests”” is a concept capable of being interpreted quite broadly. During the passage of the Human Tissue Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, said: "““The noble Lord made several points regarding best interests … We would argue that consent may well be in the best interests of a person lacking mental capacity if a carer or relative on whom they are dependent is in need of a transplant or other procedure requiring the use of their tissue, and without which the carer may be in danger of dying and, therefore, not in a position to take care of the person. That is not a far-fetched instance””.—[Official Report, 16/9/04; col. GC 469.]" Those words worried me at the time, and they still worry me. I should make it clear that the context of that debate was the power given to the Secretary of State over the storage and use of tissue taken from individuals who lacked mental capacity. It was not a debate about the powers given to the Human Tissue Authority to determine issues about the removal of tissue for transplant. Nevertheless, the point that I seek to emphasise is the broad way in which the expression ““best interests”” is capable of being interpreted. I may be wrong, but I do not believe that, when the members of the Joint Committee considered saviour siblings and tissue typing, they had in their mind anything other than the donation of cord blood and bone marrow. I am not happy with the Bill as worded here. I would be much happier if the phrase ““or other tissue”” were qualified so as to make it clear that it was confined to regenerative tissue. If this part of the Bill were to go through unamended, I would worry greatly that it would give the green light to the HFEA and clinicians to sanction the creation of saviour siblings for the explicit purpose of whole-organ transplantation. While such a decision in itself would not tie the hands of the Human Tissue Authority later on, it might well create a momentum and pressure that the HTA would find hard to resist. I hope very much that the Minister will agree to look again at the wording of this part of the schedule.