Rhetoric and Reality: “Protecting” Women in Canadian Public Policy on Assisted Human Reproduction

Abstract

In the 1989 Speech from the Throne, the Government of Canada announced the calling of a Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. Tasked with studying and reporting on the implications of new reproductive technologies, the Royal Commission’s mandate also included an explicit statement that “women’s reproductive health and well-being” would be a primary area of concern. When the Assisted Human Reproduction Act was passed fifteen years later, its governing principles included the same commitment to women’s health. As of 2012, however, much of the Act has been overturned, the agency it established is being abolished, and the criminal provisions that remain are not enforced. In short, despite ongoing commitments to protect women through public policy on assisted reproductive technologies, the field remains unregulated. This article explores the discourse of “protection” in public policy on assisted human reproduction in Canada, using the examples of the precarious position of egg donors, the high-cost of assisted reproductive services, and failures in implementing the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. Drawing on print media, parliamentary debates, academic research, and policy documents, it argues there is a significant gap between the rhetorical commitment to women’s welfare articulated in policy and the tenuous realities of women’s reproductive lives.