DRW Monthly
October 2008
Issue No. 23

UK Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill Passes in House of Commons

After a 20 year hiatus in reviewing embryonic science issues, the British government has approved a bill to permit scientists to use hybrid animal-human embryos for stem cell research. Following the discovery of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) by US scientists in 1998, the United Kingdom (UK) became the first country in 2002 to pass legislation allowing research on hESC by scientists who received a license from the Human Fertilization & Embryology Authority (HFEA).(1) In addition to mandating the establishment of HFEA as an independent statutory body, the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 has served as the cornerstone regulation for subsequent stem cell research and human cloning legislation.

The 1990 Act permitted research on embryos under five categories including the promotion of infertility treatment advances; the increase of knowledge of congenital disease causes; the development of more effective contraception techniques; and, the development of detection methods for the presence of genetic or chromosomal abnormalities in embryos before implantation(2). The British government amended the Act with the Human Reproductive Cloning Act 2001 in order to prohibit reproductive cloning, and to permit therapeutic cloning, or the creation of cloned embryos for research purposes. Due to the government's growing recognition of reproductive medicine developments since the original legislation's passage, a review of the 1990 Act was initiated in 2004. A public consultation was conducted during 2005 followed by the government's 2006 publication of a white paper entitled, Review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act: Proposals for revised legislation (including establishment of the Regulatory Authority for Tissue and Embryos). The white paper contained policy proposals which were published in a May 2007 draft bill that was ultimately implemented as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in November 2007.(3)

The recently passed Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill amends many of the provisions of the 1990 Act, but retains the main features of the original 1990 regulation. The revised and updated legislation provides for changes to the regulation, and licensing of embryo use in research and therapy for assisted reproduction purposes. The bill's provisions include research into different types of embryos, and proposed changes to definitions of legal parenthood for cases involving assisted reproduction. Although amendments to the abortion law were discussed by a Committee within the House of Commons, they were tabled during the passage of this bill. Key proposals delineated in the bill are as follows:

• ensuring that all human embryos outside the body - whatever the process used in their creation - are subject to regulation;
  
• regulation of "inter-species" embryos created from a combination of human and animal genetic material for research;
  
• a ban on sex selection of offspring for non-medical reasons;
  
• retention of a duty to take account of the welfare of the child in providing fertility treatment, but removal of the reference to "the need for a father";
  
• recognizing same-sex couples as legal parents of children conceived through the use of donated sperm, eggs or embryos;
  
• altering the restrictions on the use of data collected by the regulator to make it easier to do follow-up research; and,
  
• increasing the scope of legitimate embryo research activities, subject to controls.(4)
  

Amidst heated controversy over the regulation's ethical implications, the bill will now be reviewed by the House of Lords, and upon receiving Royal Assent, it is anticipated that it will come into force early in 2009.

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