Baptist Union of Australia

Baptist Union of NSW

JOINT MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release 29 November 2007

Baptists support reproductive donor rights

National and state Baptist leaders have supported new legislation allowing reproductive donors to restrict their sperm or eggs to recipients of specific religious, ethnic or cultural groups.

The Rev Dr Ross Clifford, President of the Baptist Union of Australia, and Dr June Heinrich, President of the Baptist Union of NSW, observed that women who received donor sperm or eggs had a say on the background of the donor, and agreed it was appropriate to extend this liberty to donors.

Dr Clifford and Dr Heinrich commended the Iemma Government on the safe passage of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill 2007 through Parliament.

Opponents of the reform had argued that sperm and egg donation was equivalent to donating blood or organs. In fact there was a fundamental difference because, while blood or organ donation may save or prolong life, donation of reproductive cells was intended to lead to the creation of new life and reproductive donors may well feel an obligation to ensure the best possible outcomes for the child.

Raising children was an important responsibility and most Baptists believed a stable home with monogamous heterosexual parents was an ideal family environment, Dr Clifford and Dr Heinrich said.

The office of the NSW Health Minister, Reba Meagher, said it was "in the best interests of the child for the genetic parent to have given consent to the circumstances surrounding the child's birth and upbringing."

"To put this in another way, it will not be in the child's best interests to discover later in life that their genetic parent has a fundamental objection to their existence or the social and cultural circumstances in which they were raised," Ms Meagher told Parliament.

The bill passed the NSW upper house on Wednesday.