---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

That is exactly about the technology. The noble Lord has been talking about the moral issues behind the use of the technology. That is the important difference. On the moral use of the technology, every Member of this House has an equal standing in expressing a view. We also seem to have drifted away from the concept of the intervention of the technologist in creating life. The status quo if a patient goes for IVF is that there is no child. When the technologist intervenes to change that, he has to take responsibility. The legislation on these matters is the guidance that society is saying to the technologist that he should use. That is what is important. I had hoped that we had all agreed in our hearts as well as in our mouths that it is of absolute importance that we are talking about the creation of a life that does not exist. Therefore, legislators and doctors—as the technologists—have that responsibility on their shoulders. It is exactly the same responsibility that we ask a man and woman to bear when they create a child naturally. Should they not consider whether they have the means to sustain the child? Should they not consider their own health and the possibility of the child inheriting ill health? Should they not consider whether one of the partners is very old and therefore likely to die when the child is young? These matters must be considered when a life that does not exist is going to be created. Of course we can slip easily into the idea that there is a right to a child. There is no right to a child. A child has a right to a parent; in fact, a child has a right to two parents, preferably one of each sex. I hope that I am not stigmatised for that remark. There is a responsibility here: the responsibility to ensure that, on balance—for there are no certainties in these matters—we give the child whose life we create the best possible chance. A child is not a consumer accessory, nor, as I say, does any of us have the right to have a child. A child is a great gift and a great responsibility; those who create that life carry the responsibility for ever. When the technician creates that life, he has on his shoulders the responsibility for what he has done as well as possibly feeling that he would have a responsibility if he did not do it. We should bear these considerations in mind. Like my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, I believe that they were pretty fairly balanced in the 1990 Act and that we would be wise to leave them as they are.