ECART Outcome
The Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ECART) is a ministerial committee established under section 27 of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (HART) Act 2004. ECART considers and determines applications for assisted reproductive procedures or human reproductive research and keeps under review approvals previously given. In addition, ECART liaises with ACART (Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology) and other relevant ethics committees on matters relating to assisted reproductive procedures and human reproductive research.
ECART can only consider applications for procedures that the ACART has issued guidelines and advice for. These can include clinic assisted surrogacy, gamete and embryo donation. ECART members represent a broad range of disciplines, professions and interests including expertise in ethics, health and disability, Māori health, and consumer advocacy. ECART members meet 6 times a year to review and decide on each application. ECART decisions can be approved, declined, or deferred and the decision would typically be communicated to Intending Parents via the clinic. Each meeting publishes meeting minutes that include each application by reference number, discussion points and decision.
ECART application is submitted about a month before the meeting date and notification of your application outcome can take up to a month after the meeting. Months of process getting to the application is now done and now you wait. 2 months of waiting is not easy and your mind races on possible outcomes and what's included in the application. You start to see messages pop up on social media groups of people in the same waiting phase. When the caller ID with the clinic showed up, we nervously picked up eager to find out the outcome. The application was approved! We couldn't stop smiling and laughing knowing that now we can actually try with the embryos and our surrogate!
We immediately rang our surrogate to share the news to celebrate and to say our thanks to getting to this point. ECART approval expires in 3 years allowing you to attempt during 3 years. Now we have the approval in place, it is time to work with biology.
The Department of Internal Affairs announced (Feb 2022) thatt the HART register had over 3000 donor-conceived children in NZ since the register started in 2004. Each year a few hundreds of children are born via donor conception. Everyone's fertility journey is different and there are many reasons why Intended Parents may need donor gamete, embryo, and/or surrogate to have a child. We encourage people to talk about their fertility journey, and you may be surprised how many others have been through or are going through similar journeys.
Resources
- HART Act 2004 Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2004
- ECART Meetings Schedule of ECART meetings and previous meeting minutes
- ECART Application Forms ECART application forms including for Surrogacy Arrangements with Fertility Providers
- ACART Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART)
- Department of Internal Affairs Press Release