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Health Minister Allan Rock has unveiled legislation that would prohibit the cloning of humans in Canada, but some think it will be outdated before it becomes law in 2003. And others question whether criminal law is even the right way to approach the issue.
"This area is moving so quickly that before this bill is passed there'll be some new issue that we wish was covered," says Tim Caulfield, research director at the University of Alberta's Health Law Institute.
Caulfield sat on the advisory group that drafted the Canadian Institutes of Health Research principles that until now have guided research in these areas. Rock's legislation has adopted many of those principles, but instead of placing moratoriums on human cloning and creating embryos for research purposes it would ban these and 10 other practices (see sidebar), and make offences punishable under the Criminal Code.
Rock also wants a new national regulatory body - he favours a stand-alone agency - to license the research and govern the use of assisted human reproduction activities. "This isn't legislation like any other," Rock said, "and these are not issues like any other. These involve a human and an ethical dimension that surpasses technical or scientific matters."
After public hearings this fall, an all-- party committee has until January 2002 to make recommendations. Passage through Parliament should then take a year, and it will take an additional year before a new body to oversee the regulations is operational. The delays have prompted criticism from those who remember the fate of the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies, which called for strict regulations in 1993.
"It's very important that this move as fast as possible," says Dr. Janet Rossant, a senior scientist at Toronto's...