A new document published by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) is encouraging fertility clinics to prepare themselves for a new wave of “intrafamilial reproductive arrangements”. The authority has noted that increasingly more people are sharing their gametes or “lending their uterus” within the same family, without using an anonymous donor. These “family arrangements” pose “ethical and legal problems” and the ASRM document warns against “kinship ties” such as “matching gametes between siblings”, or those “simulating incestuous relationships”, which should be prohibited. However, the committee is less opposed to arrangements where a father donates sperm to his son’s wife. “The ethical acceptability of this procedure depends on the attitude of the female partner”.
The committee also wonders whether consent is still voluntary in such cases given the proximity or even dependency between “donor” and “recipient”.Surely these arrangements would have “negative implications on family dynamics”?
Bioedge, Xavier Symons (13/05/2017)