The Bill provides for revised and updated legislation on assisted reproduction and for changes to the regulation and licensing of embryo use in research and therapy. A draft Bill, the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, was scrutinised by a joint committee of both Houses. Proposed changes to the Human Tissue Act 2004, such as the establishment of a new body called RATE, have been dropped. The revised name of this Bill reflects that change. The Bill includes provision for research into different types of embryos, and proposes changes to definitions of legal parenthood for cases involving assisted reproduction. Amendments to abortion law were tabled during the passage of this Bill. These were discussed by a Committee of the whole House but not passed.
This publication is an illustrative text which has been produced to assist the reader. It shows the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.
These explanatory notes relate to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 which received Royal Assent on 13 November 2008. They have been prepared by the Department of Health in order to assist the reader of the Act. They do not form part of the Act and have not been endorsed by Parliament.
This consultation contains four sets of regulations required to implement the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 Three of the sets of regulations are required to add further detail to the provisions in the 2008 Act. These are: the procedure for revocation, variation or refusal of licences regulations the procedure for appeals against licensing decisions regulations, and the procedure for disclosure of information for research purposes regulations. The fourth set of regulations updates the regulations made under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, that relate to the extension of the statutory storage periods for gametes and embryos.
this is more than a study in the jurisprudence of regulation and of technology. The book also contains important and instructive essays in medical law (particularly), seeking, as it does, to explicate many of the background debates (for example on consent (pp 72–86) and information rights (pp 87–98), on the (legitimate and illegitimate) purposive interpretation of key texts such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and embryonic stem cell research (pp 47–56, 168–184), property in human tissue (pp 61–68) and genetic databases and forensic collections (pp 215–235), each of which is often treated in a more or less superficial way in some of the standard texts and commentaries, where judicial and legislative statements are offered without background context beyond some preferred ethical standpoint. And there are considerations of bioethics generally (pp 32–47, 100–118), patenting and human life forms (187–195), gambling (197–201), nanotechnology (pp 118–125).
The single greatest change to affect the UK fertility sector in nearly two decades will take place tomorrow, Thursday 1 October, as the new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended) comes into force. Changes which will come into effect with the new legislation include: * increasing the length of time people can store their embryos * a ‘cooling off’ period if one partner withdraws consent for embryo storage * extending information access rights for donor conceived people and donors * opening the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) Register for research * introducing supportive parenting into the welfare of the child provisions * banning sex selection for non medical reasons * clarifying the scope of embryo research
This research briefing was prepared in conjunction with a workshop organised by the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum, held on Thursday 8 October at the ESRC Genomics Network Conference 2009, Welsh Assembly, Cardiff. This workshop brought together new research on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 from current PhD students and recent PhD graduates, from the ESRC Genomics Network and beyond.
BERLIN — Embryos created during in vitro fertilization can be screened for genetic defects before being implanted in the womb, a German high court said in a landmark ruling Tuesday. The Federal Supreme Court in Leipzig ruled in support of a Berlin gynecologist who had carried out screening on embryos for three different couples and implanted only those that were healthy. The embryos with hereditary genetic defects were left to die off. The high court's ruling upheld a decision by a Berlin state court that the doctor's action did not violate German laws for the protection of embryos. The 47-year-old doctor, who was not identified by the court, brought the case to court himself in 2006 to clarify the legal situation. He was first acquitted by a regional court in Berlin, but the city's state prosecutor appealed.
Should the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) be rescued from the axe, or should it, as the UK government proposes, be allowed to perish, its functions absorbed by larger, more general bodies? At a panel discussion organised by the Progress Educational Trust at the Royal Society in central London, three of the four speakers favoured retaining a specialist regulator of infertility treatment and embryo research. But Alison Murdoch, professor of reproductive medicine at Newcastle University’s Institute of Human Genetics, disagreed and called for an independent review of the HFEA’s function in regulating treatment.
This paper analyses elements of the legal process of consent to the donation of ‘spare’ embryos to research, including stem-cell research, and makes a recommendation intended to enhance the quality of that process, including on occasion by guarding against the invalidity of such consent. This is important in its own right and also so as to maximise the reproductive treatment options of couples engaged in in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment and to avoid possible harms to them. In Part 1, with reference to qualitative data from three UK IVF clinics, we explore the often delicate and contingent nature of what comes to be, for legal purposes, a ‘spare’ embryo. The way in which an embryo becomes ‘spare’, with its implications for the process of consent to donation to research, is not addressed in the relevant reports relating to or codes of practice governing the donation of embryos to research, which assume an unproblematic notion of the ‘spare’ embryo. Significantly, our analysis demon