The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008: Tinkering at the Margins

Abstract

This note suggests that, viewed from a feminist perspective, the reforms contained in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 represent a missed opportunity to re-think the appropriate model of regulation to govern fertility treatment and embryology research in the UK. It argues that reform of the legislation was driven largely by the government's desire to avoid re-igniting controversies over the legal status of the embryo and abortion and to maintain Britain's position at the forefront of embryo research and related biotechnologies. It also highlights the importance of media debates, which were highly selective, to the reform process, and suggests that in order to inject feminist values into the process of legislative reform, feminists need to become more media savvy. In the short term, it suggests that there is little prospect of a radical re-thinking of the appropriate ethico-legal response to the wide variety of family forms that reproductive technologies potentially enable, much less of considering our ethical obligations to the new forms of embryos that are now permitted by the 2008 Act. In the meantime, however, it argues that these issues provide productive opportunities for feminist legal theorists to address questions that have been erased or obscured in the course of the 2008 reforms.

Vulnerability and the Consenting Subject: Reimagining Informed Consent in Embryo Donation

“…In the UK, embryo donation to health-research is regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (HFEA 1990), as amended (principally by the HFEA 2008), and monitored by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The HFEA 1990 adopts a permissive approach to health-research: only a handful of experimental activities are prohibited (Fox 2009;Scully et al 2012). Acquisition of, and work with, human embryos is permitted, subject to an HFEA license and the written consent of embryo donors.…”

The fertility treatment time forgot: What should be done about surrogacy in the UK?

“…The 2008 Act also exempted the operation of some not-for-proit surrogacy services from the criminal provisions of the Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985 and allowing them to recoup inancial costs involved in the provision of their services, 7 though it might be said that such piecemeal reform does not go far enough and that it would be better to have surrogacy agencies working on a proper, though regulated, commercial basis, in the interests of all parties concerned. Rather than 'tinkering with the existing legal provisions' (Fox, 2009), serious consideration should be given to how surrogacy operates in reality this century and how best to facilitate those arrangements while extending the protections deemed necessary to safeguard the interests of the parties involved. This was clearly not achieved by the 2008 Act.…”

We’re All Infected: Legal Personhood, Bare Life and The Walking Dead

“…It is perhaps because of the porousness represented within the human that the term is so difficult to define. Genetically, the human is contested by entities such as admixed embryos [13,34,40]. Materially, the human body is ever more problematized by its relationship with technology [20].…”