Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology / Chairman: Dame Mary Warnock, DBE.

  • Great Britain. Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology.
Date:
1984
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology / Chairman: Dame Mary Warnock, DBE. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/116 (page 20)
    whose existence is widely known. In addition there is a number of private centres, particularly in London, providing AID and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service offers AID at some of its pregnancy advice bureaux, located throughout the country. The present position 4.9 Under existing law neither AIH nor AID is unlawful. A child born to a married couple as a result of AIH is the legitimate child of that couple. A child born as a result of AID, on the other hand, is illegitimate, and so is liable to suffer all the disadvantages associated with that status. In theory the hus- band of the woman who bears an AID child has no parental rights and duties in law with regard to that child; these in principle lie with the donor, who could be made liable to pay maintenance, and who could apply to a court for access or cus- tody. Arguments against AID 4.10 Submissions to the Inquiry included some expressing strongly-held views against the practice of AID. There are objections derived from the view that AID represents the intro- duction of a third party into what ought to be an exclusive relationship. This 1s held to be morally wrong in itself, whatever the motives of those involved may be. But it is also seen as a threat to the relationship and to the family which is based on it. The threat arises because the child would be biologically the wife’s and the donor’s, and the husband would have played no physical part in its procreation. Some go so far as to suggest that the introduction of a third party into the marriage means that AID is in fact comparable to adultery, in that it violates the exclusive physical union of man and wife, and represents a break in the marriage vows. However, in law AID does not constitute adultery! and in practice there are several distinc- tions. AID involves no personal relationship between the mother and the donor at all, and the identity of the true father of the AID child will normally be unknown to the mother, and unascertainable by her. In most cases it can be assumed that the mother’s husband is willing from the start to treat any resulting child as his own and not merely as an accepted ? MacLennan v MacLennan 1958 S.C 105.