I couldn’t believe my ears hearing the panellists on Questiontime cite the child’s need for a father as a reason for agreeing to the destruction of Natalie Evans embryos, following her losing her case for custody of the embryos against her ex-partner Howard Johnston who withdrew his consent to IVF treatment after the embryos had been created. As much as I support the child’s need for a father, how on earth can a need for a father be more basic than life and the right of the embryos not be destroyed once they have been created? Add in the fact that Hazel Blears representing the Government have been responsible for undermining the child’s right to a father without any parliamentary debate, through the HFEA, whose unelected and unaccountable ex-chair, Suzi Leather, made pronouncements last year about the child’s right to a father being removed from statute so that single women could receive IVF, and the whole thing struck me as ridiculous, muddle headed and more than a little hypocritical.
I was also astonished that Michael Nazir Ali, Bishop of Rochester who chaired the HFEA’s ethics committee admitted frankly that he did not know who had the right to custody of the embryos, Natalie or her ex-partner. While the HFEA should not be a decision making body, this just goes to highlight the total inadequacy of the HFEA’s understanding of ethics and the fact that the HFEA ethics committee is not just a democratic farce but an intellectual shambles. It is clearly endowed with a power far in excess of its capabilities.
In any case are the ethics really so complex? How on earth can anyone weighing what each party loses side with anyone other than Natalie and the embryos who respectively lose their right to motherhood and life against a man who loses nothing by the implantation of embryos he previously consented to creating? Natalie has undergone a much more serious invasive procedures to produce the embryos than her ex-partner, why should all the egg harvesting, injections and invasive treatment be all in vain because he has changed his mind? The physical consequences of terminating the embryos or implanting them concerns Natalie and the embryos and has no physical impact on her ex-partner. Any attempt to turn this scenario on its head and ask if a woman could be forced to carry embryos if the woman withdrew her consent instead, simply misses the point that the Natalie Evans case does not in any way involve a lack of the woman’s consent to pregnancy.
The current law on consent may side with Howard Johnston but that only proves that the law must change. Consent should only apply to the creation of the embryos and should then be irrevocable, just as marital separation doesn’t give the male partner the right to insist on the destruction of children. It is not as though Howard Johnston’s sperm was used against his will. Writing in the Evening Standard, Will Self says that “Mr Johnston has made statements that exhibit an emotional intelligence all too often far from men’s minds during the act of conception. He has said that IVF is “something that you should undertake as a couple in a stable relationship where the key consideration is the welfare of any offspring. And that he couldn’t countenance having nothing to do with his child, despite knowing that he was somewhere in the world” . All of which is fine and admirable in the context of good fatherhood, but how can it be good fatherhood to insist on the destruction of embryos? Shouldn’t consent to IVF involve a commitment to the children first that isn’t subject to a future change of mind?
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