Second Round of Consultation on the Proposed Donation and Surrogacy Guidelines: further changes since ACART’s 2017 consultation

This is a second round of consultation, following ACART’s consultation in 2017, on proposed changes to the guidelines for family gamete donation, embryo donation, the use of donated eggs with donated sperm (donated eggs/donated sperm) and clinic-assisted surrogacy (collectively, the Donation Guidelines review). ACART invites submissions on three matters it has reconsidered since the first round of consultation.

Although ACART has confirmed its intention to rescind the mandatory biological link requirement, it was apparent from the submissions that not all people had the same understanding of consent under the new regime. Consequently, ACART has amended the consent provisions to ensure they are clear and unambiguous. In this consultation document, ACART presents a full and clear explanation of when consent would be needed, to gauge whether people understand and agree with our proposal. ACART has also made amendments to the provisions for family gamete donations and for surrogacy.