Today in the Globe & Mail, three professors are protesting a decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal to nullify parts of the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act:
The children of assisted reproduction must be the clear priority because they are the most affected for the longest time. The wishes of many are clear: to know their genetic and gestational parents, the truth about their conception and all their parents’ current medical status so that they can take preventative measures to protect their own health. Some adults say that, as long as children are well loved, their deliberate separation from all their parents doesn’t matter. One child answered, “All the good intentions and love in the world won’t change the definition of right and wrong. It won’t change how the kids feel.”
Children need adult protection. This is why we urge all levels of government to work together to regulate this field. From the perspective of a child of assisted reproduction, inaction is not just unhelpful, it is a dereliction of duty. As you read this, children are being created in Canadian clinics that no longer have regulatory oversight, or even clear legal obligations to make and preserve records that could enlighten people about their genetic and gestational parents’ identities and what disease they are likely to inherit.