Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- PART 1 THE SCIENTIFIC ISSUES
- PART 2 THE ETHICAL ISSUES
- ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE STATUS OF DIFFERENT DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES
- ARGUMENTS FROM POTENTIAL
- EMBRYO RESEARCH AND WOMEN
- PART 3 CONTROLLING EMBRYO EXPERIMENTATION IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
- FORMING A PUBLIC POLICY
- LEGISLATION AND ITS PROBLEMS
- 17 Biological processes and moral events
- 18 Embryo experimentation: The path and problems of legislation in Victoria
- 19 The syngamy debate: When precisely does an embryo begin?
- APPENDICES
- GLOSSARY
- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
- INDEX
18 - Embryo experimentation: The path and problems of legislation in Victoria
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- PART 1 THE SCIENTIFIC ISSUES
- PART 2 THE ETHICAL ISSUES
- ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE STATUS OF DIFFERENT DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES
- ARGUMENTS FROM POTENTIAL
- EMBRYO RESEARCH AND WOMEN
- PART 3 CONTROLLING EMBRYO EXPERIMENTATION IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
- FORMING A PUBLIC POLICY
- LEGISLATION AND ITS PROBLEMS
- 17 Biological processes and moral events
- 18 Embryo experimentation: The path and problems of legislation in Victoria
- 19 The syngamy debate: When precisely does an embryo begin?
- APPENDICES
- GLOSSARY
- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
- INDEX
Summary
The Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act 1984 (Victoria) was an unprecedented step towards the regulation of the issues raised by in vitro fertilization (IVF). Elsewhere, investigation of the legal, social, ethical and other implications of IVF was either still under way or yet to begin. Even today very few legislatures have put together any form of regulation as comprehensive as the Victorian initiative.
The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. First, we review the developments in Victoria which led to the passage of the Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act 1984. We trace the various underlying influences and identify problems in the process of deciding and implementing policy in parliament in an area where strongly held views fundamentally conflict. Second, we focus on embryo experimentation because, more than any other issue, it became the subject of intense contention. Hence, we will examine the provisions of the Act that deal with this key issue to see how legislative control of this aspect of IVF has operated in practice. This study is relevant to any future attempts, in Australia or in any other country, to regulate research relating to new birth technologies or any other scientifically complex and morally controversial field.
The committee stage
The Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act 1984 was preceded by a committee appointed by the government of Victoria in 1982 to consider the social, ethical and legal issues arising from IVF and chaired by Professor Louis Waller (the Waller Committee).
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- Embryo Experimentation , pp. 202 - 212Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
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