LAWYERS URGE LEGISLATION FOR NRTs, CAN’T DECLARE SEX-SELECTION WRONG

ST. JOHN’S, Nfld., Aug 25 (LSN) – At a meeting of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) yesterday, lawyers discussed their concerns about the absence of Canadian legislation regarding new reproductive technologies (NRTs). Dr. Sheila Martin, a Calgary lawyer and an “expert” in the NRT field, said,  “Canadian law has yet to catch up with numerous complex issues of reproductive technology.” Some of these so-called complex issues that demand legal guidance include the assigning of parenthood given the vagaries of egg and sperm donation, sex-selection, and monetary gain.  Pro-lifers have consistently raised concerns over NRTs and the cavalier way many of them treat unborn children in the very early days of conception. As though such issues are no longer of relevance, the researchers noted that legal questions in the current debate have largely shifted away from abortion and birth control – to the rights of born children.  Bio-ethicists at the conference demonstrated the moral relativism undergirding much of today’s NRTs –  they supported the idea of legislation in principle, but were unable to condemn practices as horrific as sex-selection. Dr. Burleigh Trevor-Deutsch, a bio-ethicist from Ottawa, said, “Canadian society may say No to something now, and even the foreseeable future, but it may not say No forever and once it is ensconced in criminal law, it is difficult to turn around.”