Last week, the Dáil began debating the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill but, in reality, there was no debate. Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) poses many serious ethical and legal questions but very few objections were raised by our TDs. This is a typical pattern in these debates. The Bill is very permissive and adult-centered in its...

A new assisted human reproduction Bill, presented this week by Cabinet, will allow the use of sperm or eggs from a deceased person. The children produced will be deliberate semi-orphans, one of their parents dead before they are even conceived. This is one of several big ethical problems with the legislation. The final text of...

There is a mounting pressure in Ireland to have foreign commercial surrogacy arrangements recognised here. Today the matter is being considered by a Special Oireachtas Committee, but ahead of that meeting, the Attorney General’s office produced a document highlighting the ethical pitfalls with commercial surrogacy. It also challenges the recommendations on the matter of the...

The Government has announced the setting up of a special committee on surrogacy to discuss couples (or individuals) who make use of surrogacy arrangements overseas and then have difficulty when they come back home being recognised as the legal parents of the child. At the same time, the Government is passing legislation to make it...

In a new report for the Government, the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection has recommended legal recognition of domestic surrogacy arrangements even where the commissioning couple have no genetic connection the child. This gives the natural ties short shrift indeed. The recommendation would allow a given couple to use the sperm of one donor, the...

David Quinn of The Iona Institute discusses how egg and sperm donation and surrogacy undermine the right of a child to their identity and compares them with the illegal adoption practices of the past, which we are rightly outraged by. He appeared on the ‘Hard Shoulder’ on Newstalk. You can listen to the item here.

This week, the final parts of the Children and Relationship Act 2015 have come into operation. This legislation has changed profoundly the legal arrangement of family relationships but in a way that downgrades the importance of the natural ties. Part 2 and 3, which were delayed because of technical mistakes in the original Act, contain...

A new scientific paper says that so-called ‘designer babies’ could be only two years away. David Quinn discussed the ethics of this on Newstalk Breakfast. You can listen to the item here.

David Quinn was on Spirit Radio to ask some hard questions about a new law governing Assisted Human Reproduction and surrogacy.

Health Minister Simon Harris has announced that he is ‘commencing’ sections of the Children and Family Relationships Act for the first time. This law, passed in 2015, governs, among other things, the legal relationships between children conceived via egg and sperm donation, and the ‘intended parents’. Harris is almost guaranteed soft questions from journalists on...