The federal government's draft legislation governing assisted human reproduction would ban the following activities:
· the cloning of human beings;
· changing the genetic code to pass modifications on to descendants (germ-line genetic alteration); Health Canada says this is designed to prevent the creation of “designer children”;
· the development of embryos outside a woman's body beyond 14 days;
· the creation of embryos solely for research purposes;
· the creation of an embryo from another embryo or fetus;
· the transplantation of reproductive material from animals into humans: “It would be contrary to human dignity to allow human reproductive material that has spent any time in an animal to be transplanted or gestated in a woman”;
· the use of human reproductive material previously transplanted into an animal;
· actions designed to increase the probability of a particular sex (gender selection);
· the sale and purchase of human embryos;
· the purchase, barter or exchange of human gametes;
· commercial surrogacy arrangements.
Other activities related to human reproduction would be regulated, including the storage of human sperm, eggs and embryos. The legislation would also set up a registry to collect information about sperm, egg and embryo donors so that children conceived from donated material could gather medical information. Regulations would also cover informed consent, the need for counselling of donors and recipients, and safety standards in laboratories and clinics.