The Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act 1984 (Vic.) did not specify precisely when an embryo comes into existence. This may seem a point of merely academic interest; but within two years of the passage of the legislation, it gave rise to a heated controversy with real practical consequences for researchers and infertile couples. The issue was only resolved by the Victorian parliament passing an amendment which in effect specified, more precisely than any legislature had done before, the moment at which egg and sperm become an embryo. This enactment could be seen as a legal declaration of when a life begins—although what legal or ethical significance such a starting point possesses remains an open question.

The significance of the debate reaches beyond the Victorian experience, because it can now be foreseen that it will occur whenever a jurisdiction seeks to prohibit, by statute or other form of regulation, experimentation on human embryos. In this chapter we shall set out the background to the controversy, examine the relevant arguments and describe the way in which the issue was resolved.

The background

The Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act 1984 (Vic.) made it illegal to fertilize eggs removed from the body of a woman for purposes other than implantation of the resultant embryo in a woman's uterus. In other words, it prohibited the creation of embryos specifically for research purposes. The Act also set up a Standing Review and Advisory Committee on Infertility (henceforth ‘the SRACI’), with authority to approve experiments on surplus or ‘spare’ embryos.