Final Report (all chapters)

inspect all licensees, or how often should they be inspected. Implementation questions are to be
addressed in future regulations. As for administrative and criminal penalties, the penalties
imposed by Australia, compared to Italy and Canada, are severe. Violating a provision of
Division 1 of the PHCA is punishable by up to 15 years in prison; other violations of the PHCA
call for up to 10 years. Criminal penalties in the RIHEA are not as severe, but could still land a
scientist in prison for up to five years.
6.3 Canada: Groping Toward a New Regulatory Structure
The Canadian response to the ethical dilemmas raised by new reproductive technologies has
been more than 10 years in the making. In the early 1990s, the Royal Commission on New
Reproductive Technologies on behalf of the Canadian government spearheaded a broad national
conversation on the risks and benefits of new options in reproductive medicine. It organized
numerous town hall meetings around the country, listened carefully to the views and opinions of
the general public, and summarized this experience in a highly regarded report, “Proceed with
Care,” published in 1993. The report was the basis for several legislative proposals, the last of
which – Bill C-6, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act respecting assisted human reproduction
and related research – was finally passed on February 11, 2004, by the Canadian House of
Commons.
An important reason for examining the Canadian statute in some detail is its regulatory
stance. The Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA) not only distinguishes between
acceptable and unacceptable reproductive practices, it also establishes a new regulatory
institution responsible for regulating reproductive medicine. The Canadian case is interesting for
another reason as well: It is similar to the approach taken by Britain. The Canadian statute shares
with the British approach several key features, including the adoption of a licensing scheme and
the creation of a board of directors responsible for managing the new agency. But the Canadian
AHRA also differs from the British legislation in that it takes a much more restrictive approach
to several controversial reproductive and research techniques: It is more restrictive toward the
use of sex-selection technologies, it does not allow the creation of embryos solely for research
purposes, and it bans research cloning (which the British HFEA has legalized).
6.3.1 The Assisted Human Reproduction Act of 2004
The AHRA expounds what may be called a transitional morality, meaning a mix of ethical
norms informed by traditionalist moral sensibilities and contemporary notions of individual
moral autonomy. It prohibits all forms of human cloning, for research or reproductive purposes.
In addition, it explicitly proscribes the commercial trade in human gametes and embryos. In this,
it is quite similar to the position taken by the Australian legislators. On the other hand, it does not
prohibit surrogacy or other forms of assisted reproduction that require the use of extraneous
gametes. It also bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and marital status, thus
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