In a discussion in committee, I asked him about the trade in human body parts, especially of infants before and after birth.

The reason for working with mothers is to ensure that we look at pre-conception but also once they've had the baby, so it's past birth.

I am sorry that Parliament has not adopted our proposals, which were intended to clarify the concept of ‘sexual and reproductive health’, our guidelines in this field, or our concerns to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/Aids and to guarantee the safe conditions that women need for pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal care, in other words, to protect the health of mothers and babies during and after pregnancy.

Mr. Breitkreuz (Yorkton Melville) , seconded by Mr. Spencer (Regina Lumsden Lake Centre) , moved, — That the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights review the current definition of “human being” in section 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada and report (a) whether the law needs to be amended to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child so as to provide appropriate legal protection for a child before as well as after birth; and (b) whether the law should be amended so that an unborn child is considered a human being at the point of conception, when the baby's brain waves can be detected, when the baby ...[+++] starts to move within the womb, or when the baby is able to survive outside the womb (Private Members' Business M-392)

That the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights review the current definition of “human being” in section 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada and report (a) whether the law needs to be amended to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child so as to provide appropriate legal protection for a child before as well as after birth; and (b) whether the law should be amended so that an unborn child is considered a human being at the point of conception, when the baby's brain waves can be detected, when the baby starts to move within the womb, or when the baby is able to survive outside the womb.

To help you understand what is meant by the expression ``new reproductive technologies'', I will give you a list of a few activities which were carried out and are still being developed because the government's moratorium is only ``voluntary'': contracts in which surrogate a mother is paid to carry a child she will give up to her customers after delivery; trade in human ova, sperm and embryos; child gender selection for non medical reasons; free in vitro fertilization for women who cannot afford it in exchange for ova; alteration of the genetic material of an ovum, sperm or embryo and its transmission to a subsequent generation; exp ...[+++]eriments on bringing babies to term in artificial wombs; duplication or cloning of human embryos; production of human and animal hybrids; use of ova retrieved from cadavers or foetuses to give birth to babies or for research purposes.