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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 108, Amendment No. 108A: 108A: Clause 14, line 4, leave out ““supportive parenting”” and insert ““support by a father and a mother”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I pray in aid the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, in her famous report of more than 20 years ago. The point of regulation is that people want to know that there are some basic moral principles that keep watch over scientific advances. Once people are well informed, they seem to welcome further embryo research, provided that certain boundaries are not crossed—for example, genetic manipulation or sex selection. The need for parents is only the second moral or ethical principle in this law—the first being consent, on which your Lordships have just had an intense debate. There is nothing else in this law of those moral principles. The need for parents is an expression of the understanding that science should not leave aside the basics of family foundation and child-raising. That is why cloning has been banned, as the ultimate expression of the ability to produce a child with only one parent. If the principle of a need for parents or for a father is removed, the message to the public is that a line has been crossed that people do not want crossed, that there are no bars to methods of producing children that might be harmful, offensive or contrary to the interests of a healthy child—which is in the interests of us all. Your Lordships have repeatedly called, with consensus, for ethical principles to be enshrined in embryology law. If the fundamental principle of equal respect for mothers and fathers, for which my amendment argues, is not won, it is hard to see where the law can possibly succeed in establishing ethical principles. I pursue it not because I make any ethical claim for myself, but because I know from my tenure at the HFEA that science will progress satisfactorily if it has public approbation through regulation, with principles that are well understood. I wish the scientific parts of this Bill, which have gone a long way forward, to succeed and to bring good to us all. Your Lordships know well that, although this House has voted quite rightly in favour of more scientific permissiveness in this law, there is some unease among the public. I appreciate the extra trouble the Government have taken to meet the concerns expressed, hence my inclusion in this amendment of the need for a father and a mother. This should not be a party issue. This House should reach a consensus on what is necessary without the need to consider what might be a party line. My objection to the wording of some of the more detailed amendments that come in this group and the next is that, while I know they are meant to be helpful and to define, their wording is derived from existing law on custody, adoption and child welfare. There, assessments are made of parents’ behaviour retrospectively. You have the parents and the child, and you can look back to see whether they were supportive parents and how they behaved in relation to the child. IVF is prospective. The doctor has a woman or a woman and man standing there waiting for treatment. Of course they will say that they are committed to supportive parenting, that they give this or that undertaking, yet it is all purely speculative. We need a phrase or principle in this law for the doctors and for the public, one that is simple and can be readily understood, and that can permeate the guidance that the HFEA will give in its code—which may flesh it out or water it down. Keeping the requirement to have regard to the child’s need for mothers and fathers is an important case of non-discrimination. It is about upholding parenting and equal respect for both sexes in their roles. It is about avoiding the risk I have referred to on earlier occasions in this debate that scientific advances in fertility may dehumanise in particular fathers, who are reduced to mere sperm donors and who, having done their job, can go away with no regard to their vital importance in children’s welfare. Women have fought a long battle to be recognised in their maternal role, for their bodily integrity and autonomy, and for their role to be valued. It is now the turn of men to fight that same battle, for they are falling behind in this need to keep humanity in our IVF law. What would be the reaction of your Lordships’ House if this Bill were somehow to say that no account need be taken of a child’s need for a mother? I think it would be instantly adverse. What I say on these principles applies equally to male gay relationships. Let us remember that although the need for a mother has been implicit because it has been the mother who is presented for treatment, scientific advances mean that may no longer be so in a few years’ time, if we envisage the artificial production of gametes or the use of eggs from aborted foetuses. Those things have not so far been approved because a child would then lack parents. The state should not deny the child’s need for a father and a mother. The public, when polled, have expressed overwhelming support for this. Some 77 per cent of the public think the need for a father is important, and I am sure a mother, too. Even more young people—84 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds—want to see the children having a legal father as well as a social one. To fly in the face of what the public want would, in the long term, jeopardise the confidence that the public have in the regulation of embryology and IVF, in which this Bill takes such a large step. The Government have recognised these concerns with this alternative phrase about supportive parenting, but I am sad to say that those words are not appropriate or acceptable. They add nothing to the existing statutory and judicial interpretation of welfare, which for a century has included a parental relationship anyway. The government amendment will not mean much to the public, and will present difficulties of interpretation to clinicians and to the HFEA in drawing up guidance in the code, as with all the other amendments along these lines. The approach of my amendment is clear; it accords with the consensus of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee that two parents were a good value to promote. I will not delay your Lordships with arguments I have put before about the value of having two parents, the research that shows how valuable they are, and the problems we have in this country in our failure to appear in world tables of the health and happiness of our young people. The research that has been done on same-sex rearing of children of course only deals with very young children and is at an early stage. It is greatly outweighed by the research going the other way, and begs the question whether children would not do even better if there were a father. The NSPCC has called recently for greater paternal involvement and flexible working patterns in the light of research showing that children need fathers. The law, as it was, by no means absolutely banned the principle that said that children need fathers. It was more an exercise of discretion. In the last year of statistics, over 2,000 women who were single or lesbian accessed IVF treatment, according to HFEA figures. Overwhelmingly they are single women who have waited a long time for the right man—or even a reasonably acceptable would-do man—to turn up, but he has not. This is sad, but it makes us think about the problems of family life today. It is not discriminatory—there I must disagree with the government position. We have a law against ageism in this country, but would a doctor not be within his rights to say, after considering the plea of a 70 year-old woman for IVF treatment, that he thought it was not in the interest of the child? We have a law against ageism, but this is an area for discretion. By retaining the need for a father and a mother to be considered—not actually to be present—we will be staying in line with most of Europe. There has been no challenge to that. We will be out of line with most of Europe if we water down that requirement. This is an area where the courts of Europe will grant a certain amount of leeway to national countries to do as they think fit. I feel fairly confident that we are not breaching human rights by requiring a father and mother. Indeed, I think that most people would be astonished to regard it as a breach of human rights or discriminatory to say such a thing. If there is real discrimination, it is in the patchy and sparse provision by the NHS. It would not surprise me if someone one day said, ““I have a right to access fertility treatment on the NHS, but it is not being given to me””. That is the real discrimination. Speaking as an academic lawyer, I think that the principle in law is very important, almost regardless of what has happened in practice. To remove the need for parents sends an unfortunate signal. Moreover, the Government, rightly, have encouraged paternity leave as well as maternity leave. They encourage child support from fathers. They, as do the judges, encourage contact with fathers after divorce. They encourage the registration of a father's name on the birth certificate. They have ended the anonymity of sperm donors. Why, if they are not important? With all the drawbacks of reduced numbers of donors, why has anonymity been ended? Why is there a drive to tell children who their fathers were, if not for the simple reason that to know your father is a good thing? As the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child says, the child has a right to know and, if possible, to be cared for by its parents. That is the one basic ethical principle that I believe should be in our law. In response to everything that has been said in the debates and in the pre-legislative scrutiny committee about ethics being written into the Bill, if this House does not sign up to this ethical principle, I will find it very hard to believe. If we cannot agree on this, there is diminishing hope for good, safe, acceptable popular progress in science and its regulation in the future in this country, where it has been so successful, on the basis of the 1990 Act. I beg to move.