Federal Inquiry

[Caroline]

Keep a look out on the federal parliament website (www.aph.gov.au) for an announcement about the Federal Inquiry into Donor Conception Practices. It could be as early as tomorrow (15th June 2010). If it goes through tomorrow there will be a press release from Senator Trish Crossin & then the committee that is holding the inquiry will be immediately open for submissions. I will post more info as I received it.

[dadams]

We finally have our inquiry. It was announced today.
This is a momentous occasion.
The terms of reference are as follows:
The past and present practices of donor conception in Australia, with particular
reference to:
(a) donor conception regulation and legislation across federal and state
jurisdictions;
(b) the conduct of clinics and medical services, including:
(i) payments for donors,
(ii) management of data relating to donor conception, and
(iii) provision of appropriate counselling and support services;
(c) the number of offspring born from each donor with reference to the risk of
consanguine relationships; and
(d) the rights of donor conceived individuals.

[Quinny]

Excellent news! Is anything required of us? How does this inquiry proceed now?

[dadams]

We have to make submissions.
Submissions can be made by anyone who has an interest in the matter.
Basically a submission can contain anything you want that you feel is important to the subject.
Details about how to make a submission will come out shortly.
Then apparently if they get enough submissions from a city then a committee will be sent to that city for public meetings (or something along those lines).

[Caroline]

The submissions have started to roll into the Federal Donor Conception Inquiry if you go to http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/donor_conception/index.htm and click on submissions received you can then read the submissions that people have chosen to be made public.
If you haven't already put in your submission you need to do it by 30th July
Remember submissions can be made either fully open (with name included) or open but with no name or fully confidential (this means only the committee will read it - it will not be available on the website.

[Quinny]

My submission is on the website now.

Now that I have re-read it, it is very short.

[dadams]

Hi Adam
it was a great submission.
Sometimes articles/submissions etc that are too long cause the reader to lose the message, so I would worry about that.
Short, sharp and shiny and to the point.
I'm still working on mine.
Cheers
Damian

[Quinny]

Thanks Damian.

I'm glad you think it's great! I can't wait to read yours. I assume you'll make it public.

I've been enjoying reading everyones submissions. It's great to see so many different points of view.

[dadams]

Up to 17 submssions so far. I think that there might be a flood of them coming in next week. I know several that are still in the works.

[Quinny]

Well 17 published on the website, there could be more private ones.

I hope there are a lot more submissions next week.

[Daven]

I know a fair few people planning on finishing this weekend.

[dadams]

another 14 have gone on today.

[dadams]

update:
it is up to 51 submissions now

[Quinny]

I liked your submission Damian! It was very well written and with great content.

I found it interesting to see the contrasting points of view of the ACT fertility clinic and Repromed.

[dadams]

Thanks Adam, I was able to use parts of a paper I am writing on the subject so I had much of that info at hand.
re Canberra - they just want the status quo and you can see quite clearly that they are currently happy with their bottom line ($$$) and don't want any of that to change. I am appalled that our lives have been boiled down to $200.
Repromed on the other hand I think can see that there will be changes so are doing their best to put forward measures they think are easy for them or sound good to others but are trying to minimise it. You can see this by the fact that they put no detail in the components about the rights of offspring and just gloss over this part. Their comment on making extraordinary attempts to locate past donors does not match with their current and past attitudes and efforts. My experienes along with others of Repromed make me sceptical of this suggestion and that perhaps they are just paying lip service.
I must admit I almost kind of expected all of the clinics to tow the same line so it is interesting to see some discrepency.
It is taking quite some reading to get through it all.