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The Syngamy Debate: When Precisely Does a Human Life Begin?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Stephen Buckle ,
Karen Dawson  and
Peter Singer
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Extract

The Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act passed by the Parliament of Victoria, Australia in 1984 was the first legislation anywhere in the world to deal specifically with the regulation of in vitro fertilization and embryo experimentation. As with any pioneering legislation, it has had its problems. Prominent among them was the question of precisely when an embryo comes into existence. This question, which may seem mere semantics, 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 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 it remains an open question what legal or ethical significance such a starting point possesses.

Type
Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , Summer 1989 , pp. 174 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1989

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References

For a discussion of the basis of this prohibition, see Kuhse, H. Singer, P., “The Ethics of Embryo Research,” Law, Medicine and Health Care 1986, 14(3–4): 133–38.Google Scholar
Strictly speaking, the problem was not section 6(5), since this had not been proclaimed, and so had no legal force at this time. Section 29, however, required SRACI to have regard to the spirit and intent of the Act in its work. The committee held that this required it to have regard to section 6(5), even though it had not been proclaimed.Google Scholar
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The St. Vincent's Bioethics Centre is a Victorian centre for research in bioethics which supports Roman Catholic approaches to issues in bioethics. The submission was published anonymously under the title “Identifying the Origin of a Human Life,” in St. Vincent's Bioethics Newsletter 1987, 5(1): 4–6.Google Scholar
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