Baby making now easier

Help is on the horizon for women unable to get pregnant through conventional means. Photo / Northern Advocate

The final barrier to making babies is about to be lifted.

The Herald on Sunday can reveal the Government will this week approve new guidelines which will allow women wanting a baby to use donor eggs as well as donor sperm.

Health Minister Tony Ryall will on Thursday formally accept the Government's Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART) guidelines on how the procedure can be used.

Until now fertility clinics have not been allowed to carry out the treatment. Women wanting to get pregnant this way have had to go overseas, or couples where both are infertile have had to go overseas.

New Zealand's Catholic bishops opposed the new treatment.

Catholic spokesman John Kleinsman said there was concern about the long-term emotional effects on children born this way, which denied them relationships with those biologically close.

There were 43 submissions, most of them in favour of the treatment.

The new guidelines will allow donated sperm to be used to fertilise donated eggs in a laboratory before the resulting embryos are implanted in a third party.

Ryall would not comment yesterday.

Thursday's announcement will mean the end of 18-months' plus work by ACART. They have consulted with the public and experts and drafted guidelines for the Government.

Official Information Act papers obtained by the Herald on Sunday, show a Ministry of Health policy analyst wrote that the people waiting for the new procedure "are not lesbian couples or single women (as was anticipated earlier) but are heterosexual couples who are both infertile".

A senior policy analyst said in another document they had met with counsellors at Fertility Associates, Wellington, who said they had three couples waiting for the guidelines to be passed, while another couple had given up waiting and instead opted for embryo donation.

Auckland District Health Board's Fertility Plus medical director, Neil Johnson, said he had clients in "double figures" who wanted to use donor eggs and sperm.

Some already had suitable donors and were just waiting for the go-ahead.

People taking the treatment have to undergo an ethical approval process to make sure they are following the guidelines believed to include things such as not using donated sperm and eggs from people who are closely related.

Johnson said his clients "will be absolutely delighted" by the announcement.

Some had been close to going offshore to do the procedure.

Elizabeth, a 39-year-old Auckland marketing manager and committee member of Fertility New Zealand's Auckland branch, said making the new procedure lawful was simply "amazing".

The single businesswoman had been investigating going to Australia to get donor eggs and sperm to fulfil her wish to become a mum. But now she would start seeking a Kiwi egg donor.