The State in Action: An Insider's View of How the State Regulates the Use of PGD with HLA Tissue-Typing in New Zealand

Abstract

In New Zealand the choice by intending parents to use reproductive technology is limited by legislation. This default restriction on the prospective parents’ procreative autonomy applies unless the use of the assisted reproductive procedure has been approved on the basis of guidelines or regulations. The task of creating these guidelines falls to a non-governmental advisory committee, the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART). This advisory committee is supposedly unconstrained by political considerations and, in theory, provides a forum for deliberative discussions on the ethical and social disagreements that surround the use of assisted reproductive technologies.

This chapter provides an analysis, from the perspective of a member of ACART, of how the advisory committee functions in reality. It focuses specifically on the developments of guidelines controlling the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) with human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue-typing, more commonly referred to as creating ‘saviour siblings’.