Fertility Clinics (Hansard, 16 January 2003)

§ Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 provides that the creation of human embryos outside the body and the use of those embryos can only take place under the conditions of a licence issued by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The authority would not issue a licence for embryos to be created for subsequent sale.

It is essential that couples who are considering donating their embryos for research should receive proper counselling. It is appropriate for research institutions to support fertility clinics to provide that counselling in order to ensure that patients are able to make a fully informed choice about whether to donate their embryos for research, and to enable those donations to take place if the patients so wish. In line with this, the Medical Research Council (MRC) is to make funding available to clinics to employ nurse coordinators who will ensure that the donor couple are fully informed and able to make such choices of their own free will, and also to liaise with researchers to inform them if embryos become available. The MRC is not offering financial or other inducements in exchange for human embryos.