Regulation of clinics vital, says ethics expert

A LEADING expert on medical ethics said legislation and regulation was essential to govern the activities of fertility clinics and clarify the rights of the embryos they produce, store and implant.

Dr Deirdre Madden, a lecturer in medical law at University College Cork, was also a member of the Government-appointed Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR) which delivered a comprehensive report a year-and-a-half ago highlighting precisely the problems Mr Justice McGovern alluded to in his High Court ruling on the frozen embryo case yesterday.

“We don’t have any legislation dealing with the issues raised by this case and others in the assisted reproduction context,” she said. “This was one of the recommendations by our Commission — that legislation would be drawn up to set up a regulatory body.”