Normal humanness, change and power in human assisted reproductive technology: an analysis of the written public submissions to the New Zealand Parliamentary Health Committee in 2003

Abstract

The public submissions made to the Parliamentary Health Committee on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technologies (HART) Bill and Supplementary Order Paper 80 are analysed in this report. Within this corpus, five major themes are identified: normality, humanness, natural versus social constructs, moral decline, and rights and power. The report is organised on the basis of these overlapping themes. Running throughout these five very general themes were two major discourses: one Christian-identified; the other, medical-scientific. A minor discourse of disability rights was also present. Many submissions, from all three of the modes of discourse, expressed fear that assisted human reproductive (AHR) technologies were challenging the boundaries of normality. AHR technologies were seen in many submissions as potentially opening a door to eugenics and the commodification of humans. Such submissions often requested the establishment of more strict regulatory frameworks. The natural order lying behind kinship relations was seen to be greatly challenged by AHR in some submissions, particularly those which were Christianidentified. Many such submissions viewed the HART legislation as part of a general moral decline of society. While some submissions viewed AHR technology as distinctly unnatural, others asserted the naturalness of the human use and development of technology. The desire to have children was cast as natural throughout the submissions. The right of offspring to know their origins emerged as a key issue. Questions of whether the production of children was a right or a privilege, and whether AHR was a constraint or a support, also emerged from the submissions. Adherence to human rights was seen as fundamental within the submissions, with differing conclusions about the correct use of AHR technologies, influenced by whether the authors viewed personhood as being established at conception or at some later developmental stage. Placing our research into an international context, we note that the limited use of scientific (both social and bio-medical) evidence within the New Zealand debates contrasts greatly with the extensive use of such evidence within British Parliamentary debates. Other aspects of the submissions appear to be unique to New Zealand, including the emphasis upon the importance of whakapapa (genealogy) in the establishment of identity.