The government has made it clear that the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) services should be limited to a specific situation, and it does not wish to expand its use, lawmaker-cum-restaurateur Andrew Chan Chak Mo, who heads the Legislative Assembly’s (AL) 2nd Standing Committee, told reporters yesterday.
Chan made the remarks after chairing a closed-door meeting of the committee, which is reviewing in detail a government-initiated bill regulating ART services, adding that if the use of ART services is not limited, there may be a lot of commercial surrogacy, gametes trading, and impact on the well-being of children.
A gamete is a reproductive cell (sperm in males or eggs in females), having only half of a complete set of chromosomes.
The bill proposes that pregnancies which cannot be carried out through any technique that uses the gametes of a married couple or those in a domestic partnership (known in Portuguese as “união de facto”), or prevents serious genetic disorders, may be carried out using a third person’s eggs or sperm.
The bill proposes that the creation of embryos through ART services for the purpose of scientific research and experimentation is prohibited. However, scientific research on embryos may be carried out for the prophylactic, diagnostic or therapeutic purposes of embryos, for the improvement of ART services, the establishment of stem cell banks for transplant programmes, or for any other therapeutic purpose, which does not concern the remaining embryos of a fertility programme.
The bill does not stipulate the location or entities permitted to carry out embryo research. Chan quoted the committee members’ concern on whether research can only be conducted in hospitals.
Chan quoted the government as saying that research institutes can also conduct such research after submitting their project to the Health Bureau (SSM) for approval and receiving advice from the Life Sciences Ethics Committee, but they must always follow the guidelines of the SSM.
Chan said the committee would continue to review the bill and hoped to submit a detailed list of questions to the government to respond to.
Lawmaker-cum-restaurateur Andrew Chan Chak Mo (right), who chairs the legislature’s 2nd Standing Committee, talks to reporters after the committee’s closed-door meeting reviewing a government-initiated bill regulating ART services yesterday, while the committee’s secretary, Lam Lon Wai, looks on. Photo: Ginnie Liang
