N.Z.’s first in-vitro baby this year

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 3

N.Z.’s first in-vitro baby this year

PA Wellington New Zealand’s first baby conceived within this country by in-vitro fertilisation will be born later this year, says the Minister of Justice, Mr McLay. He also said that the wider use of artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilisation procedures would cause real problems and that Parliament might have to act to define the legal status of such children. In an address to the Law Society conference at Rotorua, Mr McLay said invitro fertilisation births, where the egg was fertilised by sperm in a laboratory glass dish, had taken place in New Zealand within the last year as a result of procedures carried out at Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital. “However, recently the National Women’s Hospital in Auckland has begun to use I.V.F. and at the time of this writing the first baby bom as a result of I.V.F. is expected later this year,” he said. “The possibility of an I.V.F. unit in Christchurch is

being investigated.” Legislative intervention might be needed because of development of the new techniques, he said. Already, there had been calls for Parliament to legislate to make it clear that a child born after artificial insemination by a donor (A.1.D.) was legally the child of its “social” father and not the child of the donor. Similar questions about the status of the child would arise if donated sperm or ova were used in the I.V.F. programme. "To the traditional legal question — who is this baby’s father? — could be added the novel one — who is this baby’s mother?” Mr McLay said. “We only have to look at the legal consequences attendant on the parent-child relationship to see that Parliament may have to act in this area.” The system of birth registration was principally designed to record blood relationships, he said. That meant that a man who registered the birth of

a child as his, knowing that the child was conceived by A.1.D., might commit an offence under the Births and Deaths Registration Act. Both the father and mother of a child had certain rights in respect of the child. They might consent to adoption, a change of name or the child’s marriage. “The ‘social’ father of an A.I.D. child may well have no legal standing to exercise these rights,” Mr McLay said. “If the ‘social’ parents dispute guardianship, custody, or access it seems that the father, who is a nonbiological parent, may be in no better a position than a stranger to the child. “In questions of inheritance, the A.I.D. child is probably in a similar position to an illegitimate child before the passing of the Status of Children Act, 1969, and probably could not claim against an estate as a descendant for the purposes of a will or intestacy or a family protection claim, even though he or she was regarded by the deceased as his or her child,” said Mr McLay.