IVF DOCTORS TO RAFFLE HUMAN EGG: The Times of London

reports:

A fertility clinic is raffling a human egg in London to promote its new “baby profiling” service, which circumvents British IVF (in vitro fertilisation) laws.

The winner will be able to pick the egg donor by racial background, upbringing and education. Payment for profit is illegal in Britain, but the £13,000 of free IVF treatment will be provided in America.

The raffle, to be held on Wednesday, is to promote a tie-up between the Bridge Centre, a fertility clinic in London, and the Genetics and IVF Institute (GIVF) in Fairfax, Virginia. ...

In Britain, donors have to agree to be identified and contacted by any resulting offspring when they reach the age of 18.

Payments are restricted to a maximum fee of £250 for expenses, and as a result donors are in extremely short supply.

One of the first Britons to use the US service is Celia, a 38-year-old married businesswoman from the Midlands, who received two donor eggs in America at Christmas. Last week the prospective mother underwent a three-month scan that confirmed the twin pregnancy, which has cost her a total of £13,000, is progressing normally.

Her donor was a 27-year-old, whose eggs have produced four babies and three pregnancies, including Celia’s twins.

“I wanted someone who looked a bit like me as an adult, but the main consideration was the quality of her eggs,” said Celia. “This woman produces 30 at a time, and they were split between me and another woman, otherwise the cost of donation would have been double the £9,000 we actually paid.”

“I don’t want anyone to know these babies are not mine. Not my family or any of my friends. We don’t intend to tell the children, either.”

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, culture, donor conception, United Kingdom, Virginia

posted by Eve at 4:00 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

CATHOLIC BISHIOPS HOLD FIRM IN REJECTING FERTILITY TECHNOLOGY: Religion News Service

reports:

"Be fruitful and multiply," God instructed Adam and Eve, and men and women have heeded those words ever since. But over the years, God's creatures have become sophisticated enough to rewrite the rules of being fruitful, and most of the new rules don't sit well with leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

The bishops are sympathetic. When Rigali was archbishop of St. Louis, he celebrated a Mass for infertile couples, and the current St. Louis archbishop, Robert Carlson, did the same recently. But many Catholic couples suffering through the heartache of infertility think that the church contributes to their pain by erecting roadblocks to medically assisted pregnancy.

At the meeting in Baltimore, the bishops approved a document on reproductive medical advances, "Life-giving Love in an Age of Technology." The document says: "The church has compassion for couples suffering from infertility and wants to be of real help to them. At the same time, some 'reproductive technologies' are not morally legitimate ways to solve those problems."

Church teaching says technology used to facilitate or support marital conjugation and conception is fine, but any other technology is not. Church teaching allows tests and treatment for low sperm count or problems with ovulation. But artificial insemination, even using the husband's sperm, is prohibited.

"Children have a right to be conceived by the act that expresses and embodies their parents' self-giving love," the U.S. bishops say. "Morally responsible medicine can assist this act but should never substitute for it."

According to a 2002 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 7.4 percent of married women of childbearing age were infertile. About 1 percent had tried artificial insemination as a means of becoming pregnant; about four times as many had tried ovulation drugs. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 85 to 90 percent of infertility cases are treated with drug therapy or surgical procedures; less than 3 percent required assisted reproductive technologies.

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, Catholic Church, culture, infertility, religion

posted by Eve at 12:43 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A LEGAL PUZZLE: CAN A BABY HAVE THREE BIOLOGICAL PARENTS?: Adam Cohen

in the New York Times:

...Researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center were looking for ways to eliminate diseases that can be inherited through maternal DNA. They developed, as the magazine Nature reported last summer, a kind of swap in which defective DNA from the egg is removed and replaced with genetic material from another female’s egg. The researchers say the procedure is also likely to work on humans.

The result would be a baby with three biological parents — or “fractional parents,” as Adam Kolber, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, calls them.

He mentioned the idea over lunch at The Times, and it provided plenty of grist for debate among law junkies: Could a baby one day have 100 parents? Could anyone who contributes DNA claim visitation rights? How much DNA is enough? Can a child born outside the United States to foreigners who have DNA from an American citizen claim U.S. citizenship? ...

Since the 1960s, there has been a shift toward recognizing people’s intent in creating familial relationships, as reflected in the rise of no-fault divorce, prenuptial agreements and civil unions. But when it comes to deciding parenthood, courts remain deeply influenced by biology, even when it clashes with intent.

This concern is playing out now in A.G.R. v. D.R.H. & S.H., the biggest surrogacy case in New Jersey since Baby M’s. A woman served as a surrogate for her brother and his male spouse, giving birth to twins conceived with the spouse’s sperm and donor eggs. She signed a contract agreeing that her brother would adopt the children, but the trial court, saying it was following the Baby M decision, ruled that the spouse and the surrogate mother are the legal parents. The surrogate’s brother was given no parental rights.

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, parenting, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 12:34 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

REENGINEERING THE FAMILY: Heather Mac Donald

in National Review Online:

An image from a TV ad for gay marriage, reproduced in the January 18 New Yorker, provides a Rorschach test for reactions to America’s ongoing revolution in family structure. Two men in black suits stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a group of people, looking into each other’s eyes. In their arms are two newborns in white baby clothes and blankets. Though it’s not immediately apparent from the photo, the men are at a baptism for their infants. The ad, still being test-marketed, is called “Family Values,” and is intended to emphasize the “conventionality of gay couples,” explains The New Yorker.

If your reaction to the image is: “Where’s the mother(s)?” you may not yet be fully on board the “conventionality” bandwagon. If your reaction to the foregoing question, however, is: “Why does it matter?” then you are keeping pace with the revolution. “Why does it matter?” may ultimately prove the more appropriate response, but no one should pretend that it represents anything other than a radical revision of the traditional relationship between parents and children — one whose consequences no one can predict.

Every time a homosexual couple conceives a child, there is another parent offstage somewhere whose sperm or egg has allowed conception to occur (and, in the case of male homosexuals, whose womb has allowed gestation to occur). In some homosexual families, that parent will be involved in his child’s life; in others, he will remain completely anonymous and unknown. Parental identity and responsibility for children in a homosexual family do not flow from biology; they result from choice and intent. To the extent that a gay couple wants to retain the traditional number of parents in the home, it must exclude one biological parent from inclusion in the family unit. To the extent that a gay couple wants to preserve the traditional connection between that biological parent and his offspring, however, the adult side of the family becomes more of a non-traditional threesome. ...

These are not easy questions. The deprivation to gays from not being able to put the official, public stamp of legitimacy on their love is large. If one were confident that gay marriage would have at most a negligible effect on the ongoing dissolution of the traditional family, I would see no reason to oppose it. And fertility technology is hardly the only source of stress on families; heterosexual adults have been wreaking havoc on the two-parent family for the last five decades in their quest for maximal freedom and choice. The self-interested assumption behind that havoc has been that what’s good for adults must be good for children: If adults want flexibility in their living arrangements, then children will benefit from it, as well. Perhaps children are as infinitely malleable as it would be convenient for them to be. But if it turns out that they thrive best with stability in their lives and that the traditional family evolved to provide that stability, then our breezy jettisoning of child-rearing traditions may not be such a boon for children.

The facile libertarian argument that gay marriage is a trivial matter that affects only the parties involved is astoundingly blind to the complexity of human institutions and to the web of sometimes imperceptible meanings and practices that compose them. Equally specious is the central theme in attorney Theodore Olson’s legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8: that only religious belief or animus towards gays could explain someone’s hesitation regarding gay marriage. Anyone with the slightest appreciation for the Burkean understanding of tradition will feel the disquieting burden of his ignorance in this massive act of social reengineering, even if he ultimately decides that the benefits to gays from gay marriage outweigh the risks of the unknown.

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, culture, donor conception, gay marriage, gay parenting, single parenting

posted by Eve at 12:27 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

REVISITING "THE HANDMAID'S TALE": FEMINIST THEORY MEETS EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON SURROGATE MOTHERS: Karen Busby and Delaney Vun

(I've stripped the footnotes, but you can find them--and related discussion--when you download the paper itself):

...We then consider recent research on the characteristics and experiences of women who have agreed to be surrogates. In this review, which is the main focus of the paper, empiricism will meet feminist theory as we revisit arguments against surrogacy, including the inability to give informed consent, the inherently exploitative nature of the arrangements and the dangers of commodification. Anecdotal research, both popular and theoretical, is available as is research based on more rigorous empirical methodologies to study the experiences of surrogate mothers. As will be described more fully, the “empirical data [consistently] offers little support for widely expressed concerns about contractual parenting being emotionally damaging or exploitative for surrogate mothers, children or intended/social parents”.

Vasanti Jadva and her research team concluded, based on interviews with 34 British women who have been surrogate mothers, that

Overall, surrogacy appears to be a positive experience for surrogate mothers. Women
who decide to embark on surrogacy often have completed a family of their own and feel that they wish to help a couple who would not otherwise be able to become parents. The present study lends little support to the commonly held expectation that surrogate
mothers will experience psychological problems following the birth of the child. Instead, surrogate mothers often reported a feeling of self-worth. In addition, surrogate mothers generally reported positive experiences with the commissioning couple, and many maintained contact with them and the child.

A challenge to the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA) (which prohibits paying a woman to be a surrogate mother) on federalism grounds was argued before the Supreme Court of Canada in April 2009. (The case started on reference by the Quebec government, before Quebec courts and they were joined by the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick before the Supreme Court of Canada.) Many sections of the AHRA were declared unconstitutional by both lower courts.

If the lower court decisions are upheld, the remaining sections of the AHRA will not make sense on their own and the federal government as well as provincial governments will need to reconsider surrogacy and other assisted human reproduction laws. Given this possibility, and in light of the research on surrogate mothers’ experiences, it is timely to review Canadian laws relating to surrogacy arrangements. We will briefly undertake such a review in the last section of the paper.

download the paper here (PDF)

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, feminism, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 8:32 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

BID TO CUT GAYS FROM SURROGACY IN QUEENSLAND PARLIAMENT: Courier-Mail

reports:

THE divisive issue of gay parenting is set to split State Parliament after the Opposition introduced a Bill to ban same-sex couples and single mothers from accessing surrogacy.

Opposition deputy leader Lawrence Springborg yesterday moved to trump the Government on the issue after it drafted laws to decriminalise altruistic surrogacy for anyone in Queensland, including homosexual couples and sole parents.

But Opposition MPs were angry the issue of surrogacy had been tied to gay parenting and had called on the Government to split its Bill, allowing all MPs to vote separately on decriminalising surrogacy for heterosexual couples and then same-sex couples.

The Government refused, but Labor politicians will now be forced to vote on the Opposition's Bill with a conscience vote expected to reveal deep divisions over the issue on all sides of politics.

more

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, Australia, gay parenting, single parenting, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 11:50 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

IVF MOTHER: "I LOVE HIM TO BITS, BUT HE'S PROBABLY NOT MINE": The Guardian

feature (UK):

Angela Carter once said that "paternal parentage is often clouded in a way that maternity is not." She was talking about Wise Children, her novel concerned with the slippery, unknowable nature of paternity.

The essential mechanics of reproduction have always put women at an advantage in any question over parentage. We know the truth, whatever it may be, about our offspring; men just have to take our word for it. But in the time since Wise Children was published, this imbalance has shifted. For some women, the idea of maternity is suddenly not so assured.

Last month, Carolyn Savage from Ohio handed over her baby to its biological parents. She had been implanted with the wrong embryo after a mix-up at a fertility clinic. This came after a number of other IVF errors. In June, a couple from Cardiff were told that their last remaining frozen embryo had been mistakenly implanted in another woman, who had since had it aborted. In the same month, it was revealed that a white Northern Irish couple had given birth to a mixed-race baby, after being given the wrong sperm. And the instances go on. A Californian woman was awarded $1m in 2004 after a fertility specialist gave her the wrong embryo and hid the mistake until the baby was 10 months old. A white New Yorker gave birth to a black baby in 1998, sparking a complex, two-year legal wrangle between the two couples for visitation rights.

In vitro fertilisation is a booming industry. Around 12,500 babies a year are born in the UK as a result of IVF. More than 36,000 women a year attend the UK's 136 clinics for treatment. That's a lot of embryos in a lot of petri dishes in a lot of freezers. You can see how the occasional mistake happens: all it would take is a technician's moment of inattention, the phone ringing, a colleague asking a question, and – just like that – the wrong petri dish is plucked from the shelf and a terrible, private tragedy is set in motion.

The number of cases which come to light is small but it begs the question: just how many of these slip-ups go undetected? ...

One fertility counsellor – who does not want to be named – says that she deals with an increasing number of people who fear that the clinic may have made a mistake. "It's an issue for a lot of couples, particularly the women. Mothers need to be sure of that bond and it's not uncommon to experience doubt."

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, gender differences, IVF, motherhood, parenting

posted by Eve at 7:59 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

IS THERE A HIERARCHY OF PARENTHOOD?: Julie Shapiro

blogs:

...There are a number of different tests you might use to determine who the parents of a child are. Each has strengths and weaknesses, which are discussed elsewhere on the blog. Part of the challenge is that the question arises in so many different situations. ART in particular gives us a whole range of new complications, but there are plenty even without that. ...

Now if you go back over the blog, I think you’ll find instances in which every one of these tests has been deployed. And of course, you can mix and match them. Some people have multiple factors going for them–they intend to have children, they are genetically related to children they give birth to and they act as the children’s parents. Those tend to be easy cases.

The hard cases come when you have competing contestants, or where one person wants to cut another out, as in the new Montana case. One person claims one basis for parenthood, and someone else claims a different one. Or there are cases when no one wants to claim parenthood and we need to find someone. (Not long ago I wrote about a case where a man who had functioned as a father for 13 years sought to sever his relationship with the child by asserting that it turned out he lacked the genetic connection something he apparently knew all along, but never mind that.) How to decide these?

Cases like this seem to me to suggest we have some sort of hierarchy. So, for example, to reach the result the court did in the case I just mentioned (he’s still the father) it had to say that function (and the relationships constructed based on that function) trump biology (by which test he was not the father.) Again, you can look back and find many instances in which one test seems to overcome another.

And I guess this is my present question. Is there some hierarchy and if so, what is it? Actually, I suppose I really mean should there be a hierarchy and if so, what should it be? After all, I’m more concerned with what the law ought to be than with what it is in any particular place (it varies so very widely.)

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Labels: adoption, Artificial Reproductive Technology, de facto parenting, donor conception, Julie Shapiro, parenting

posted by Eve at 4:41 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

PREGNANT UK WOMAN IMPLANTED W/WRONG EMBRYO MUST GIVE UP BABY: The Daily Mail

reports:

A pregnant mother will have to give birth to another couple's baby after a blunder by an IVF clinic.

Carolyn Savage had the wrong embryos implanted into her and will have to give the boy up to his biological parents as soon as he is born.

Yesterday Mrs Savage, 40, who was expecting her fourth child with husband Sean, said: 'The hardest part is going to be the delivery. I remember communicating with the [unnamed] mother of this child as to what I was envisioning and hoping for." ...

The couple decided not to have an abortion because of their religious beliefs, and have met the other couple and arranged a handover.

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, motherhood, pregnancy, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 2:36 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

MUCH HAS CHANGED IN SURROGATE PREGNANCIES: NY Times

reports:

With the birth last month of twin girls for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, surrogate pregnancy once again assumed center stage. After years of infertility following the birth of their son in 2002, the couple chose to have another woman gestate the embryos they created.

Much has changed in surrogacy in the two decades since the high-profile Baby M case, in which the surrogate was the baby’s biological mother and unsuccessfully sought custody after the birth.

The legal proceedings in that case helped affirm the validity of surrogacy contracts, which are now standard. Some states have laws that protect the commissioning parents in surrogate pregnancies. And in a vast majority of surrogate pregnancies today, the surrogate has no genetic link to the baby.

Still, surrogate pregnancy is illegal in some states, including New York, and it remains fraught with controversy despite the fact that thousands of American couples — most of them not celebrities or especially wealthy — are happily bringing up children they could not produce on their own.

more

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, donor conception, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 3:25 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

UK LESBIAN COUPLE WINS FIGHT FOR IVF AT TAXPAYERS' EXPENSE: LifeSite

reports:

An anonymous lesbian couple have won the right to in vitro fertilization (IVF) paid for by the National Health Service (NHS) after a legal battle with their local health trust, which initially refused them the service because they were of the same sex and the child would by fatherless.

The health trust withdrew their objection to funding the treatment for the lesbians, which was based on U.K. regulations that recognize the child's need for a father, because of a new regulation which takes effect in October that says couples will only need to demonstrate "supportive parenting" when requesting IVF.

more

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, Fathers, parenting

posted by Eve at 2:40 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

End of Anonymity: Is Just Knowing a Name Enough? (re: Michael Jackson's Children)

forum post at ProudParenting:

... I do wonder though if they feel as confused over their 'donor/surrogate' conception as I and many other 'donor' conceived feel? Do they wonder who their genetic father/ mother/ grandparents/ siblings/ cousins/ ancestry/ heritage are? Do they feel a loss?

Now that their dad is gone, will they feel more open to explore what their 'donor' conception/surrogacy means to them? Will it take having children of their own to fully explore their feelings and how it relates to their own children to search for more information?

I advocate for the end of anonymity in relation to 'sperm/egg' donation/vending and surrogacy, but I also do not think that just knowing a name is enough. I believe everyone does have a responsibility for their own sperm/egg when combined to create a new (out of the womb) life (including 'sperm/egg donors' and 'surrogates') that includes more than just identity disclosure – and nothing less than open doors and open hearts.

Michael Jackson's children are not abandoned by any means but are they genetic orphans? I hope not. No doubt, there are many people willing to be involved and supportive in their lives but is that enough? I hope and pray that their genetic father/mother/grandparents and extended family have also kept their doors wide open to these children. Love might make a family but we can't just write off genetics and the importance of genetic/biological family. They all matter.

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, culture, donor conception

posted by Imapp Staff at 3:53 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Man Searching for Sperm Donor Dad: London (Canada) Free Press

reports:

Donor 188, where are you?

It's a question Rob Hunter has been pushing to answer for more than a year, a chance to connect with his biological father.

"It would make me feel more alive to know where I come from," the Waterloo man said yesterday.

But Hunter has hit a brick wall in his quest for information on the man who donated sperm for his conception at the University Hospital fertility clinic in London 24 years ago.

It took the clinic from April to August last year to provide him with the sparse information that the sperm donor was No. 188, he said. ....

This week, after dozens of phone calls, the fertility clinic provided more details. The sperm donor was six feet tall, 180 pounds, with brown eyes, had a history of hypertension on the father's side, and was between 20 and 25 years old.

The clinic has said that's all Hunter will get, citing patient confidentiality and the original agreement with the donor to protect his identity.

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, donor conception

posted by Imapp Staff at 3:48 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Who Is the Biological Father of Michael Jackson's Children?: Trina Hoaks

writes:

Diane Diamond appeared on MSNBC minutes ago discussing the fate of Michael Jackson's children. She said that she does not think that anyone in Michael's family will end up with custody of the three children as no one in the Jackson family is biologically related to them. What?

Even though Michael maintained that his sperm was used to conceive his children, Diane Diamond is contending that that is not the case. She gave indication that she knows the identity of the man who is the sperm donor though she is not prepared to share that information. She does suspect, however, that he will be making himself known. To support her contention, she pointed out the fact that the children are light skinned and blue eyed. ...

Also, there was speculation as to whether the surrogate mother of the third child, known as Blanket, would come forward at this time.

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, donor conception

posted by Imapp Staff at 3:40 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

LAMENT FOR A BIOETHICS COUNCIL: Joe Carter

at the First Things blog:

Earlier this week, members of the President’s Council on Bioethics were told by the White House that their services were no longer needed. President Obama’s decision was made and implemented in his typical style—gracious, pragmatic, and imprudent. According to the New York Times, the council was disbanded because it was designed by the Bush administration to be “a philosophically leaning advisory group” that favored discussion over developing a shared consensus. The new bioethics commission appointed by Obama will have a new mandate to offer “practical policy options.”

In other words, the Obama administration already knows where it stands on all those pesky moral issues like human cloning, chimeras, and euthanasia, and just needs a group to provide advice on how to implement its preferred policies. Whereas the previous councils wrestled with such questions as “What is the nature of human dignity?” the new one will most likely be addressing more practical policy options, such as “How much should we pay women to harvest their eggs for cloning?”

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, culture, reproduction

posted by Eve at 1:02 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

WILL WOMEN ONE DAY FATHER CHILDREN?: Globe and Mail

feature:

In the new Canadian film The Baby Formula, opening later this week, two lesbians become pregnant using sperm derived from each other's stem cells.

The premise of the mockumentary may be fictional, but with the speed at which stem cell research is evolving, could same-sex human reproduction one day become reality? And should it?

Scientists have already taken the first baby steps toward realizing this brave new, and some would say controversial, world of conception. ...

In 2006, Karim Nayernia of Newcastle University generated sperm from male embryonic stem cells that fertilized female mice and produced offspring. A year later, his team was able to derive primitive sperm from stem cells taken from the bone marrow of human men.

Since then, Dr. Nayernia's group has been working on creating sperm from women's bone marrow stem cells and is expected to report its findings within weeks.

“We are now publishing a paper describing the producing of human sperm in the laboratory,” he says. “It is male, but we have had some success with female.” ...

But Toronto stem cell scientist Andras Nagy isn't so sure.

There would be several biological hurdles to overcome, he says. First and foremost, women's DNA contains two X chromosomes, but no Y (male) chromosome.

“Without the Y chromosome, it's just simply not possible,” Dr. Nagy says. “The other issue here is that females have two X chromosomes and the presence of two X chromosomes in a cell again [blocks] the sperm formation.”

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, Fathers, reproduction

posted by Eve at 5:18 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

TX JUDGE ALLOWS COLLECTION OF DEAD SON'S SPERM: Associated Press

reports:

A judge has granted a mother's request to have someone harvest sperm from her dead son's body, so she can have the option of carrying out his wish to have children.

Nikolas Colton Evans, 21, died Sunday at a Brackenridge hospital after being punched and falling outside an Austin bar March 27.

His mother, Marissa Evans, told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper that he wanted to have three sons someday and had even picked out their names: Hunter, Tod and Van.

"I want him to live on. I want to keep a piece of him," she told the newspaper. ...

University of Texas law professor John Robertson, who specializes in bioethics, said state law gives parents control over a child's body for organ and tissue donations but its use for sperm "is very unclear."

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Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, donor conception, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 3:32 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

UK Embryo Authority Warns Warns IVF Children Have 30% Higher Risk of Genetic Abnormality: LifeSite News

reports:

The British government's embryo research authority has warned potential parents that children conceived artificially through in vitro fertilization have a thirty percent higher risk of genetic abnormalities.

Reports of higher levels of birth defects among IVF children have been making headlines since at least 2003, but the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has only this week issued a warning on the matter. The HFEA said that parents should be told of the risks associated with IVF, but emphasized that not all the risks are fully understood and more research is needed.

more

HFEA's statement:

...The risk of birth defects in the general population is low. Two per cent of children in Europe are born with birth defects. Some research suggests there might be an increased risk of 30 percent for babies born as a result of ART. This would mean that the risk rises to 2.6 percent, which is still low. There is not enough data to be more precise but this is the best estimate currently available.

Research to date cannot say with absolute certainty that this increased risk is due to ART. Other causes including the original cause of infertility, the age of the patient or other unexplored factors cannot be discounted.

In order to make sure patients understand the risks of ART as well as they can we keep research of this kind under review. And where it suggests there may be a greater risk we share this information with patients in a clear way to help them understand the risks associated with the choices they are making.

However, we still do not know the complete picture. All we can say with confidence is that there is a small risk associated with ART in general.

more

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, IVF

posted by Imapp Staff at 1:40 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The State Creates Sperm Donors

The new social institution of the anonymous sperm donor is completely the creation of the government. This case from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania proves that beyond any shadow of a doubt. In this case, a woman asked a friend to donate sperm to her, on the understanding that he would not be a father to the child: he wouldn't ask for visitation or other parental rights, and she woudl not ask for child support. By the time the child was 5 years old, the mother changed her mind and asked for child support. The PA Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling, and decided that the man did not owe child support. The court ruled that the couple's verbal contract was binding. Bill Duncan posted the case earlier.

This case is interesting because the court's argument makes it very clear that couples could not and would not contract for donor sperm unless they were assured that the state would create a separation between the members of the couple. Given that the state already permits anonymous sperm donation, I think this case is properly decided.

Contrary to the Court's statement, I can think of several good policy reasons why the "would-be mother's reproductive prerogatives" should be curtailed. Children have a natural right to have a relationship with their fathers. The state has no business separating mothers and fathers from each other, and children from their fathers. We should not assume that every woman has a right to have a baby, just because she wants one. And if a woman wants to "seek the sperm of a man she knows and admires," public policy ought to be to encourage her to marry him, not cook up alternative contracts with him that allow them to deconstruct the parental relationship.
I think we should begin having a debate on exactly these questions.

Read my entire post at my personal blog.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, Fathers, Marriage

posted by Jennifer Roback Morse at 10:56 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT