“If embryos could talk, which embryo would you listen to?” – Dr Marewa Glover

Marewa Glover:

I don’t mind getting wet when it rains
just like I wouldn’t push you away if you were crying
raindrops are the tears of Ranginui
but this is just romantic twaddle, what I’ve got from books
or gleaned from observation
at a powhiri you don’t see the kaikaranga come out in gumboots, raincoat and umbrella
she still calls barefoot
you don’t see the ope up and run for shelter
tikanga prevails

I’m one of those ‘book learnt Maori’
urbanised, colonised
but some ancestral threads are woven through me
Our whakapapa might be handed around rather than passed down
but at least I know where I’m from
Ko Ngatokimatawhaorua te waka
Ko Hokianga te awa
Ko Nga Puhi toku iwi

but our whanau has been separated from our whenua
land     
placenta
we have been separated from our iwi
bones
we have been separated

and I don’t know what the Nga Puhi think
or even the Maori way is
and I want to do the right thing

So now, I feel a bit sad
about my seemingly blasé attitude
to our one little leftover embryo
who underdeveloped was not good enough
to be put back in me
and anyway four would have been too many
so surplus to need
I just let it go wherever
be disposed of however
It’s only now
since I’ve done this research
on Maori attitudes to Assisted Human Reproduction
that I know there was another way
and sure Maori have lots of ways of thinking about IVF, PGD
embryos
Maori are “diverse”
but if I was able to choose a way to think and act
then to help stem the loss of Maori culture
I’d prefer to choose the tuturu, true Maori way
or at least a more Maori way of being

So now, I think about that little embryo differently
now I am conscious of its
whakapapa
that it had a mauri
maybe even a wairua
It wasn’t going to become a child
it wasn’t good enough to keep, to freeze, to use later
to donate to anyone else
it probably even wouldn’t have been any good for research purposes
though that would have been a better fate for it I feel
at least then it would have done something more with its life
I would have been more likely to think of it
talk about it
‘oh yeah we had an embryo that went in to research – like its mother’

I could have at least taken it home
buried it
along with the amniotic fluid and whenua from our daughter
one of the good embryos
maybe the best one
that nice looking eight cell one with good cleavage
but i didn’t know
I don’t know what my hapu or iwi think about these things
what they’d say was right
tika
tikanga
It’d be good to know
to at least have had the choice to act in accordance
with Nga Puhi or even Maori tikanga
instead of what happened
which was just I guess
a Pakeha way of doing things

So now, I feel a bit sad
that I let a bit of Maori culture
or an opportunity to do something the Maori way go
get sucked down the drain…

So, next time it rains
or the mists rise up from the earth making everything damp
let yourself get a bit wet
feel the tears of Ranginui and Papatuanuku
remember those that have gone
the ways that have passed
the indigenous people and cultures
like us, Maori
who are being just
washed away
with small everyday acts
Acts
policies
and the imposition of values and ethics systems
that are not ours.

This is what I got from the research on Maori attitudes to Assisted Human Reproduction - that it’s not the right question, to go and ask Maori “what do you think about IVF, PGD, doing research on embryos?”

Maori, iwi, need to be engaged in a real way – not just given the opportunity to write a submission and send it in, not just given the opportunity to have a couple of people on this committee or that committee. We need good information, statistics relevant to us - for example, on rapidly declining fertility rates.

Then Maori need to be given the opportunity to raise their own questions, such as, “he aha te kaupapa?” What’s the purpose? Why would we want to do research on embryos? Is this going to serve our purpose? Our purpose, which is, to ensure that we survive as unique people and culture.

That’s what fertility is about for Maori still - survival.

And if Nga Puhi were faced with fertility rates dropping below replacement level, with one of the reasons being increased prevalence of infertility, then we could very well decide that Assisted Human Reproductive technologies will help sustain as a people.

With regards to research on embryos, we would also ask, is this something that will sustain us or something that will contribute to our demise?

Nga Puhi need to set the tikanga for Nga Puhi. It is not for Ngati Whatua, for instance, to tell us we cannot use our embryos for research. 

Individuals, of course, vary in their own opinions, depending on their own experience. In addition to the vocal religious, academic, non-Maori views on this subject, individual Maori need access to their iwi perspectives so that they can decide from an informed position whether they would personally support this kaupapa or not.

But iwi Maori have not had the opportunity to hold hui on assisted human reproductive technologies or the use of embryos in research or stem cell research. They have not had the opportunity to sit down hui, discuss, and decide what their tikanga will be. And that tikanga would then guide their people like me

Tonight I have talked to you as a woman who has had a spare embryo, and I certainly could not have known what that would feel like before experiencing it. And, I have shared some insights from my research on Maori attitudes on assisted human reproduction. It’s a small contribution and by no means representative of iwi views on the topic. No Maori would get up and say “This is what Maori think”. We can only do what I have just done.

The title for my presentation was “If embryos could talk, which embryo would you listen to.?”

Thank you very much for inviting me to be part of this esteemed panel.

Tena koutou, Tena koutou, Tena koutou katoa.

Linda Clark:      Thank you Marewa. Our final speaker before we open it open for questions is Prof. Mark Henaghan.

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