The Court Challenges to the Act

• Author: Maureen McTeer
• Pages: 47-56

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– chapter six –

The Court Challenges to the Act

THE REFERENCE RE ASSISTED HUMAN

REPRODUCTION ACT

It was not long before sections of the  Assisted Human Reproduction

Act (AHR Act) were challenged.

In a reference before Quebec’s Court of Appeal, that province’s attor-

ney general sought the opinion of the court to determine if sections  to

,  to , , , and  of the AHR Act were constitutional as valid

criminal law legislation under section () of the Constitution Act, 1867.

Sections  and  were within the prohibited activities section of the AHR

Act. Section  set out the requirement for written consent, in accordance

with regulations, for the use of human reproductive material to create

and make use of an embryo and for the removal of human reproductive

material from a donor posthumously.

Section  limited the obtaining and use of gametes of a minor under

eighteen, except for that minor’s future use to create a child the physician

reasonably believed would be raised by that minor.

Sections  to  were controlled activities under the AHR Act, pro-

hibited unless carried out under licence in a licensed premise, in accord-

ance with regulations made under the Act. ese controlled activities

included the manipulation of human reproductive material or in vitro