Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008

3 Prohibitions in connection with embryos

(1) Section 3 of the 1990 Act (prohibitions in connection with embryos) is amended as follows.

(2) For subsection (2) substitute—

“(2) No person shall place in a woman—

(a) an embryo other than a permitted embryo (as defined by section 3ZA), or

(b) any gametes other than permitted eggs or permitted sperm (as so defined).”

(3) In subsection (3)—

(a) at the end of paragraph (b), insert “or”, and

(b) omit paragraph (d) and the word “or” immediately before it.

(4) In subsection (4), for “the day when the gametes are mixed” substitute “the day on which the process of creating the embryo began”.

(5) After section 3 insert—

“3ZA Permitted eggs, permitted sperm and permitted embryos

(1) This section has effect for the interpretation of section 3(2).

(2) A permitted egg is one—

(a) which has been produced by or extracted from the ovaries of a woman, and

(b) whose nuclear or mitochondrial DNA has not been altered.

(3) Permitted sperm are sperm—

(a) which have been produced by or extracted from the testes of a man, and

(b) whose nuclear or mitochondrial DNA has not been altered.

(4) An embryo is a permitted embryo if—

(a) it has been created by the fertilisation of a permitted egg by permitted sperm,

(b) no nuclear or mitochondrial DNA of any cell of the embryo has been altered, and

(c) no cell has been added to it other than by division of the embryo’s own cells.

(5) Regulations may provide that—

(a) an egg can be a permitted egg, or

(b) an embryo can be a permitted embryo,

even though the egg or embryo has had applied to it in prescribed circumstances a prescribed process designed to prevent the transmission of serious mitochondrial disease.

(6) In this section—

(a) “woman” and “man” include respectively a girl and a boy (from birth), and

(b) “prescribed” means prescribed by regulations.”

(6) The Human Reproductive Cloning Act 2001 (c. 23) (which is superseded by the preceding provisions of this section) ceases to have effect.