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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and will speak to the remaining amendments in this group, the impact of which would be the deletion of Part 2 of the Bill and the attendant consequential clauses. Part 2 has the effect of redefining what it means to be a mother or a father. It is intended to create a separate category of parent for those who do not fit the description of either mother or father, thereby creating in law a family that could never exist in nature. Part 2 also allows a dead woman to be treated as a parent—even though she neither has nor had any biological relationship to the child—while preventing the child from having a father. The proposals are far reaching. The current law may not be perfect, but it is better than the Bill before us today. I propose deleting Part 2 in the interests of keeping the law as it is. Trying to unpack this complicated and convoluted mess would lead to more problems than it would solve. I contend that the Government should take Part 2 back to the drawing board. If there is anything there worth preserving in the interests of upholding or enhancing the status quo, I hope that the Government will reintroduce provisions in a new Part 2 in the near future. The relationship between children and their parents is, once again, at the heart of the redefinition of a family taken forward by Part 2. Clause 45 states that where two women wish to access IVF treatment as a partnership, "““no man is to be treated as the father of the child””." I invite your Lordships to step back for a moment and consider the full ramifications of that statement. It effectively means that, from before the child is born until he or she ceases to be a child at the age of 18, the state, through this Bill, effectively makes it impossible for that child to have a father at any time during their childhood. Indeed, even when the child turns 18, they will not actually have a father but will only be able to find out who their father is. Whatever you think of the children’s rights movement, surely every child has the right, at least, to have had the chance of having a father. Do we really want to enact a piece of legislation that will make this impossible? What would this say about our attitude to children? To put this question in context, it is important to recognise that one of the main developments since the HFE Act has been the publication of a significant amount of research on fatherhood, the balance of which demonstrates that fathers bring something distinctive and important to the parenting process. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has referred to 80 pieces of research; what I have looked up gives me over 100. I commend to your Lordships the recently published CARE Fatherhood Bibliography, which is available on the website www.care.org.uk/fathers. It highlights more than 100 pieces of research. For those who do not get involved, or do not wish to get involved, in searching the web, I shall quote just three relevant statements. The first is from an article entitled ““The Importance of Father Love: History and Contemporary Evidence””, by Rohner and Veneziano, in the publication Review of General Psychology, 5 April 2001, pages 382 to 405. I quote: "This article explores the cultural construction of fatherhood in America, as well as the consequences of this construction as a motivator for understudying fathers, especially father love for nearly a century in developmental and family research. It then reviews evidence from 6 categories of empirical studies showing the powerful influence of fathers’ love on childrens and young adults’ social, emotional, and cognitive development and functioning. Much of this evidence suggests that the influence of father love on offspring’s development is as great as and occasionally greater than the influence of mother love. Some studies conclude that father love is the sole significant predictor of specific outcomes ""after controlling for the influence of mother love. Overall, father love appears to be as heavily implicated as mother love in offsprings’ psychological well-being and health, as well as in an array of psychological and behavioral problems””." The second quotation is from Life without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society, by Mr Popenoe, published in New York by the Free Press in 1996. It says: "““Recent research has given us much deeper … insights into the father’s role in childrearing. It shows that in almost all of their interactions with children, fathers do things a little differently from mothers. What fathers do … is not only highly complementary to what mothers do but is by all indications important in its own right for optimum childrearing””." That is on page 144. It goes on: "““Fathers are far more than just ‘second adults’ in the home. Involved fathers—especially biological fathers—bring positive benefits to their children that no other person is as likely to bring … They provide protection and economic support and male role models … According to the evidence, fathers make important contributions to their children’s intellectual competence, prosocial and companionate behaviour and psychological well-being””." Finally, I quote from a work entitled Fathers’ Involvement in their Children’s Schools, issued by the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. It was written in 1987, by Mr Nord, Mr Brimhall and Mr West. It says: "““In two-parent families, the involvement of fathers exerts a distinct and independent influence on whether children have ever repeated a grade, get mostly A’s, enjoy school, and participate in extracurricular activities, even after controlling for mothers involvement in school and other potentially confounding factors””." Given that the balance of recent research demonstrates the importance of fathers and the fact that they bring something distinctive to the parenting process, I submit that changes in the law suggesting anything to the contrary would be foolish. The proposed change would make it impossible for children to have fathers from before their birth until they cease to be children, when all that they can do is find out the identity of that father. That would be grossly irresponsible of Parliament and exhibit a total disregard for the rights and well-being of the child. Some may respond by saying that the redefinitions of Part 2 simply extend principles established in the same-sex adoption situation. That debate has been and gone. The context of adoption and IVF are entirely different. Let us consider adoption from the perspective of the child. When a child who at some point goes on to be adopted is conceived, they have a chance of having a father—indeed, they may well enjoy access to their father for a period. At some point, however, they have to be taken into care and foster or adoptive families must be sought. Thus, adopted children are not purposefully conceived on the basis that they should never have a father. What the Bill seeks to achieve is entirely different. In a context where recent research overwhelmingly demonstrates the importance of fathers and the fact that they bring something distinct to the parenting process, the decision of the state to facilitate the deliberate creation of children who would be prevented from having a father is morally wrong. That is a clear example of the Government prioritising the interests and desires of adults—in this case, would-be same-sex parents—above the welfare and rights of the children. It also goes against the many-times-stated intention that children are at the heart of the Bill and, as we were reminded by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that the welfare of the child includes the child’s need for a father, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern said during the work leading up to the Bill. Not only do I believe that Part 2 is fraught with difficulties, because it affirms policy that is negligent of the balance of recent research, but I think that it is profoundly confused about public attitudes. A stated rationale for the Bill—one of many—was to take account of changing public views since 1990. Public views may or may not be changing, but one thing is certain: they do not agree with the redefinitions of the family in Part 2 of the Bill and, indeed, in relevant aspects of Part 1, such as Clause 14. In the Government’s 2005 consultation preceding the Bill, Review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990: A Public Consultation, question 17 asks: "““Do you think that the requirement to take account of ‘the need of the child for a father’, as part of considering the welfare of the child, should be removed from the Act?””." Only 103 of the 505 responses published on the Department of Health website backed removing the obligation to have regard to the child’s need for a father. Given that there is clearly no public appetite for doing away with the 1990 provision that the child’s welfare includes the need for a father, by implication there is no appetite for making it impossible for some children to have fathers from before birth for the duration of their childhood. To be blunt, it is difficult to see how one could have regard to the child’s need for a father and yet, at the same time, prevent some children from ever having fathers. More recently, a ComRes telephone poll demonstrated that 77 per cent of people think that the obligation on IVF clinics to have regard to the child’s need for a father is either important or very important. Most interestingly, this figure rose to 84 per cent for the youngest category polled, namely the 18 to 24 year-olds. The same poll asked people directly whether they felt that Part 2’s provision—that no man is to be treated as the father of the child—was fair on the child. Only 10 per cent of people thought that it was fair on the child. This figure fell to just 7 per cent in the responses from those with children in the household. Moreover, as the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, made clear at Second Reading on 19 November, the redefinition of family relationships has the effect of denying some children a legal father, from conception and for the whole of their childhood. In the context of same-sex male partnerships, Clauses 54 and 55 make provision for bringing children into the world who will be denied a legal mother for the duration of their childhood. On this point, it is interesting to note that the option favoured in the responses to the government consultation about the 1990 fathers provision was that it should stay and have added to it a new reference to the child’s need for a mother. Some may say that, despite the implications of both recent research that I have mentioned and public opinion, Part 2 must become law because the impact of the current law discriminates against some adults. I submit that that is not the case at all. Whatever you think about current arrangements, the truth is that single women can and do access IVF and that, where the woman is in a same-sex female partnership, her partner can subsequently adopt the child. The same is true of a man in a same-sex male partnership who, according to the new HFEA code, can now use surrogacy arrangements to produce a child who can effectively be brought up by two fathers. My amendments would not change that. It is not entirely clear to me why same-sex female partnerships should effectively be able to access IVF, given the current obligation to have regard for the child’s need for a father. I suppose that it is a function of the fact that a woman seeking IVF presents herself as a single woman and is treated by the obligation to have regard for the child’s need for a father in the same way as any other single woman is treated. That that takes place at all is, in my view, wrong, given the balance of recent research and what it shows about the distinctive roles of parents and how the child’s interests are best served by access to both a father and mother. Part 2 further streamlines, automates, authenticates and thereby encourages what can currently take place as a result of the combined effect of the HFEA code and adoption law. We can only endorse Part 2—and Clause 14(2) of Part 1—if we are prepared to institutionalise the compromising of the rights of the child to a mother and a father. That would involve adopting a total disregard for the best interests of children. Remember, once more, that the best interest is not just the absence of harm but putting the child’s welfare first and recognising that part of that includes the child’s need for a father. I am not prepared to do so and I encourage your Lordships to join me in asking the Government fundamentally to rethink Part 2, bearing in mind both the balance of recent research and public opinion.