In her talk at the American University of Armenia Turpanjian School of Public Health, Judy Norsigian, founding member of Our Bodies, Ourselves, spoke about the rapid expansion of global commercial surrogacy; the lack of consideration for the health and well-being of gestational mothers and children born of surrogacy; the importance of advancing best practices and human rights in both surrogacy and egg retrieval; and the need to be cautious about human genome modification.
By Alison Motluk | Hey Reprotech! | August 27, 2019
This blog post summarizes the origin story of the support network We Are Egg Donors, and explains why one of the founding members recently resigned from her leadership role.
This article summarizes the efforts of the Free Democrats Party to convince the German Bundestag parliament to liberalize the country’s surrogacy and egg donation laws and to grant single parents and LGBT families access to fertility treatment.
Misconceptions
By Reveal | The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX | Sept. 15, 2018
Originally broadcast in June 2017, around the 40th anniversary of in vitro fertilization, this podcast follows a couple that “puts its trust in a fertility clinic that promises more than it can deliver.” It explores the world of fertility treatment and the clinics and intended parents it brings together with promises of forming families.
The midsummer reunion in a suburb west of the city looks like any other, but these family ties can’t be described with standard labels. Instead, Arroyo, a 21-year-old waitress from Orlando, is here to meet “DNA-in-laws,” various “sister-moms” and especially people like Sophia, a cherished “donor-sibling.”
This article follows Kianni Arroyo, one of many children created using sperm from “donor #2757,” in her quest to find her donor-siblings. It tracks country-specific caps on donor births, as well as efforts of organizations like Donor Sibling Registry that urge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to limit the number of births per donor, mandate reporting of donor-conceived births, and require donors to provide post-conception medical updates.
In the mid-1990s, the international community pronounced prenatal sex selection via abortion an “act of violence against women” and “unethical.” At the same time, new developments in reproductive technology in the United States led to a method of sex selection before conception; its US inventor marketed the practice as “family balancing” and defended it with the rhetoric of freedom of choice. In Gender before Birth, Rajani Bhatia takes on the double standard of how similar practices in the West and non-West are divergently named and framed.
Bhatia’s extensive fieldwork includes interviews with clinicians, scientists, biomedical service providers, and feminist activists, and her resulting analysis extends both feminist theory on reproduction and feminist science and technology studies. She argues that we are at the beginning of a changing transnational terrain that presents new challenges to theorized inequality in reproduction, demonstrating how the technosciences often get embroiled in colonial gender and racial politics.
I’ve Met Hundreds of Egg Donors. This Is What I Have Learned.
By Raquel Cool | We Are Egg Donors | Dec. 26, 2017
Watch Raquel, co-founder of We Are Egg Donors, and others in its 1000+ member network share their experiences and concerns related to paid egg donation, from the risks associated with unethically high numbers of harvested eggs to the absence of data on the health of those that provide these eggs. This video was commissioned by Our Bodies Ourselves, as part of the organization’s ongoing efforts to increase public awareness on issues related to egg retrieval.
We Are Egg Donors is the first advocacy group for egg providers created by egg providers. The group invites egg providers to share their stories and welcomes them into the network.
Read Cool’s personal account, describing the organization’s commitment to ensuring egg providers are informed, supported, safe, and connected to agencies that will advocate for them.
This report tracks steps taken by the Government of Canada towards strengthening the country’s Assisted Human Reproduction Act and supporting regulation. It focuses on three specific areas: the safety of donor sperm and eggs; the process, scope, and documentation related to reimbursement; administration and enforcement.
The purpose of the document, according to its introduction, is to provide Canadians with an overview of key policy proposals that will help inform the development of regulations and engage citizens prior to finalizing policy. Several members of Impact Ethics participated in a public consultation (read the summary), including Françoise Baylis, co-editor of “Family Making: Contemporary Ethical Challenges.”
Read a commentary on Health Canada’s efforts to reboot the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, contributed to the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics by Francine Coeytaux (Co-Director of Pro-Choice Alliance for Responsible Research), Marcy Darnovsky (Executive Director of Center for Genetics and Society), Susan Berke Fogel (Co-Director of Pro-Choice Alliance for Responsible Research), and Emily Galpern (Consultant at Center for Genetics and Society).
The Legal and Ethical Complexities of Sperm and Egg Donation
By Nightlife | March 27, 2017
Listen to medical research scientist, Damian Adams and Associate Professor in Health Law, Dr. Sonia Allen discuss challenges around sperm and egg donation, including issues related to the rights of parents, donors, and children.
Dr. Sonia Allen consults with the South Australian government on ARTs, sperm and egg donation. A report on her review of the South Australian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 1988 is available to read.
Update: In November 2017, the South Australian government tabled their response to the review conducted by Dr. Allan from 2015-2017. The Hon. Peter Malinauskas, Minister for Health, thanked Dr. Allan, stating the government had commissioned her due to her international expertise in the field. He then committed the government to establishing a donor-conception register, making the rights of donor-conceived people “a main priority for South Australia” and committing to implementing changes that “best reflect Dr. Allan’s recommendations.” Victoria enacted Dr. Allan’s model for access to information by donor-conceived people into law in March 2017 – the first of its kind in the world – and now South Australia has made the commitment to follow.
