Following threats last week to fertility clinic staff, Sims Clinic director calls for clarification on legal status of embryo.
THE DIRECTOR of a leading fertility clinic has called on the Government to "provide leadership" after shotgun cartridges, a hoax device and threatening letters were sent to a number of clinics over recent weeks.
Dr Tony Walsh of the Sims Clinic in Dublin said leadership was urgently needed because in Irish law at present "a fertilised cell" has the same legal status as a child in the womb.
A Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction was established in 2000 and reported in 2005, but its findings have not been adopted by the Government. One of its main recommendations was the establishment of a regulatory body.
The commission's report was referred to the joint Oireachtas committee on health and children, but those working in reproductive medicine say they are being left in a legal and medical limbo because of the lack of a legal framework covering reproductive medicine.
Dr Walsh said Ireland had "a long history of reaction to reproductive medicine" but that once fertility treatments were explained properly, people were generally very supportive.
Couples getting treatment were "doubly burdened," he said, because they had a fertility problem and because "society takes an ambiguous view of their treatment".
The Catholic Church is opposed to fertility treatments such as IVF and in this context it was "always going to be controversial".
Dr Walsh said recent research in the US indicated that up to 80 per cent of fertilised eggs could never develop into a person even if they were implanted in a womb. Until an embryo is implanted it cannot be regarded as having human potential, he added.
"Politicians need to give direction and leadership," he said. Unused embryos in the Sims clinic can neither be destoyed nor given to other infertile couples, he said.
"If a couple want their embroys to be destroyed they have to come and take them away themselves. Couples often say they would like to donate them for adoption but until we have clarification with a legal framework, I am very reluctant to do this. We are in a legal quagmire," he said.
Because only 20 per cent of embryos could develop into a foetus even when implanted, the State was giving legal status to what was "nothing more than a biological mishap," he argued.
It saddened him, he said, that after major advances in reproductive medicine over the past 20 years, "Ireland hasn't been able to open up to it".
The discovery of a device and threatening letter at the Sims Clinic, which resulted in the evacuation of about 30 staff and a similar number of patients, had a "devastating effect" on the people involved, according to Dr Walsh. The clinics have since increased security measures following advice from gardaí.
Bullets were also sent to the Minister for Health Mary Harney and Minister for Enterprise and Employment Micheál Martin, the former health minister. The Garda Commissioner has appointed a detective inspector to investigate the incidents.
Threatening letters accompanying the bullets are believed to have accused the clinics of "murdering embryos" and to have made direct threats to individuals and their families. The shotgun cartridges were sent to named individuals. The letters were signed by a previously unheard of group calling itself the Irish Citizens Defence Force.
Dr Walsh confirmed that the Sims Clinic was targeted on two occasions. On February 22nd, a device the size of a video cassette with wires connected to it was sent. This resulted in both gardaí and members of the army being called in and a full evacuation of the premises.
A week later, a doctor who works at the centre received a shotgun cartridge in the post, on the same day that bullets were sent to both ministers.
"The intention is to disrupt and to terrify and that is exactly what it does," Dr Walsh said.
A shotgun cartridge was also sent to a fertility clinic at Clane General Hospital. The chief executive of the hospital, Sean Leyden, said the letter referring to the destruction of embryos and cartridge was addressed to the "IVF clinic".
However, he pointed out that the individual or individuals who sent the letter was fundamentally misinformed because the regulations that the clinics follow prohibit the destruction of unused embryos. "We do not destroy embryos here, we store them, so I don't know what they are on about," he said.
A Garda spokesman said the investigation was still "at an early stage" and that no further comment could be made on those behind the threats.
The final report of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR), which was set up by Mr Martin when he was health minister reported in May 2005. It made 40 recommendations, some of which were controversial because its majority conclusion was that embryos should only attract legal protection after being implanted in the womb.
A majority of the commission also approved egg, sperm and embryo donation, as well as surrogacy and some forms of embryo research.
Concern has been expressed that the absence of a regulatory framework for assisted human reproduction mean there is no official register of clinics and no laws to ensure staff are properly qualified. There are also no independent reviews of clinics' success rates. Meanwhile, people are paying very high fees for AHR services and success rates can be very low, particularly for older patients. Individual clinics usually state success rates in promotional literature but these are not independently verified.
Responding to a query on any progress made since the commission reported, a statement from the Department of Health said that the report was referred to the joint Oireachas committee on health and children because it was "considered an appropriate forum in which to subject the report to structured democratic and political analysis and scrutiny".
It added that, in the meantime, the Minister had instructed her Department "to begin work on the development of an appropriate regulatory framework" but no further detail was given. The views of the Oireachtas committee and any relevant judgments in the courts would be taken into account in the final analysis, it added.
The text of the statement from the Department of Health on the issue was identical to one issued to The Irish Timeslast July suggesting no development has occurred since.