Assisted Human Reproduction Procedures Covered by the Act

The Assisted Human Reproduction Act provides legislative authority to establish a regulatory framework. Based on informed consent, the health and safety of women and children will come first. The legislation reflects the Government of Canada's commitment to helping Canadians make healthy and informed choices throughout their lives.

It is estimated that up to one in eight (or 12.5 per cent) Canadian couples experiences infertility. The inability to conceive a child naturally can be caused by various factors such as sexually transmitted infections (e.g. chlamydia), low sperm count or the postponement of childbearing to later in one's life. Different causes of infertility may require different treatments. Some of the most common AHR procedures include:

• Artificial insemination: The sperm of a woman's husband/partner is inserted directly into the cervix via the vagina. There are variations of this practice, including intrauterine insemination (IUI), which usually also includes ovarian stimulation and preparation of the semen. Another variation of artificial insemination is donor insemination (DI), in which sperm from a donor is used to achieve pregnancy. DI is commonly used if the husband/partner has few or no sperm (or sperm of poor quality), or risks passing on an inherited disease.
  
  
• In vitro fertilization (IVF): This technique, which involves fertilization outside the body, has been used since 1978 to treat infertility. IVF is a multi-step process that requires the hormonal stimulation of the ovaries to produce eggs, the retrieval of eggs using a thin needle, fertilization of the eggs with collected sperm in a lab dish, and transfer of one or more resulting embryos to a woman's uterus through a fine plastic tube. One form of IVF is Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), in which a single sperm is injected directly into an egg. This highly skilled procedure is especially useful when a low fertilization rate fails to produce viable embryos. There is also assisted hatching where the outer lining of an embryo is artificially thinned or opened to improve the embryo's chances of attaching to the uterus and developing into a foetus.
  
  
• Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD): This is a technique used to detect whether an embryo created via IVF carries a single gene defect which could give rise to a serious inherited disorder. It can also be used to determine the sex of an embryo where there is a risk of inheriting a sex-linked disorder, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy to a male child.