Tag: MAP – Surrogacy

Au Royaume-Uni, la Law Commission, chargée de conseiller le gouvernement sur les réformes juridiques, vient de rédiger un projet de « Surrogacy pathway », ou solution de GPA. Les lois actuelles régissant la gestation pour autrui au Royaume-Uni datent des années 1980, pour Sir Nicholas Green, président de la Law Commission, elles sont obsolètes et nécessitent d’être remises à jour, pour s’adapter aux besoins des quelques 400 personnes qui commandent des GPA en Angleterre chaque années. « Notre projet ne vise pas à examiner si la maternité de substitution devrait être autorisée. Nous partons du principe que la maternité de substitution est une forme acceptée de construction d’une famille ».

 

Parmi les propositions adressées aux ministres :

• Les parents d’intention pourraient obtenir automatiquement les droits parentaux sans avoir besoin de passer devant le juge, à condition que la mère porteuse soit britannique.
• Les mères porteuses auraient un délai de rétractation possible de 5 semaines.
• Elles pourraient être rémunérées, au lieu d’être simplement dédommagées de leurs frais.
• Un organisme de règlementation serait créé, fournissant examens médicaux et conseils juridiques à tous les acteurs du contrat.
• Le partenaire de la mère porteuse « n’aurait pas son mot à dire sur le contrat de ou sur le sort de l’enfant » parce que, selon la Law Commission, cela enverrait « un message malvenu sur le droit des femmes à disposer de leur corps ».

 

Si les ministres valident ces recommandations, « cela signifierait que, pour la première fois, quelqu’un pourrait être reconnu comme le parent d’un nouveau-né sans avoir aucun lien biologique avec l’enfant ».

 

Pour aller plus loin :

In Britain single people will now be able to become parents through surrogacy

Daily Mail,  Steve Doughty (06/06/2019) – Couples with surrogate babies could get automatic parental rights without having to apply through the courts under proposed legal reform

The Nantes Regional Court, the only court with the authority to register the birth certificates of children born abroad, validated on Thursday, 23 May, “the complete transcription of the birth certificate, including the names of the father and mother, of a young girl born in 2015 in the U.S. through surrogacy”. The child may be registered in the French Civil Registry with the name of her biological father, an American citizen, and that of her intended mother, both of whom are the child’s biological parents.

 

“French courts have ruled that maternal parenthood can be recognised under French law as long as it is shown that the child born abroad via surrogacy is the result of the gametes of the French mother who did not give birth to the child”, said Matthias Pujos, the couple’s attorney.

 

The court found that the “best interests of the child” implies “recognition of the situation abroad in accordance with foreign laws in order to guarantee the child’s right to respect for his or her identity within the national territory, of which the parents and French nationality constitute essential aspects”.

 

Such decisions have been followed by an appeal each time, with the Court of Appeals of Rennes systematically returning to a partial transcription in accordance with the case law of the Court of Cassation.

La Croix, Pierre Bienvault (26/05/2019) – Enfants nés de GPA: la justice reconnaît la «mère d’intention»

Le Figaro (24/05/2019) – GPA, une mère biologique reconnue par la justice

The Supreme Court has ruled that the parents of the cadet who accidentally died in February are authorized to resort to surrogacy to get a descendant from their son’s sperm, which had been frozen from the time of the accident. Peter Zhu, 21, was a student at West Point, a prestigious military school in the United States. He died last February from a skiing accident. His parents, who are Chinese, were even more devastated by Peter’s death as he was not only the only son, but also the only male grandson of his grandfather. He therefore had the special mission of “perpetuating his cultural and family heritage” (cf. After their son’s accidental death, a Chinese couple ask for his sperm to produce a new heir).

 

The guidelines published in 2018 by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine regarding the posthumous collection and use of gametes for reproductive purposes specifically state that “this may be justifiable if the deceased has authorized it in writing”, or, failing that, at the request of a surviving spouse or companion. Peter Zhu left no written instructions, but John Colangelo, the Supreme Court judge who issued the ruling, explained that Zhu’s parents “testified about conversations where he talked about his dream of having many children, and the responsibility he felt to perpetuate his cultural and family heritage”. His professors at West Point confirmed that Peter had repeatedly stated his desire to have children later in life. The judge found that these testimonies had the same value as written authorization from Peter Zhu, and authorized his parents to make use of his frozen sperm, which was being stored at a sperm bank.

 

The judge only remarked on a few “potential ethical considerations”, as well as the possible “reluctance of some doctors for ethical reasons” to help perform a post-mortem conception with surrogate mother.

 

For further reading:

Baby boy born in China through surrogacy four years after the death of his parents

Grandparents produce a child from deceased son’s sperm

United Kingdom – judge authorises sperm extraction from dying man for the purpose of IVF

Australia: Brisbane Supreme Court gives young woman right to use dead boyfriend’s sperm

Creation of a child after death: The Israeli Court of Appeal says no

Huffington Post (20/05/2019) – Parents Of Dead West Point Cadet Can Use His Sperm To Produce Child, Judge Says

Texas has just passed a law expanding the definition of sexual assault to include reproductive fraud. Fertility fraud involves both gynaecologists who inseminate patients with their own sperm, as well as gynaecologists who exchanged sperm samples among several donors, thus providing erroneous information to their patients.

 

Several cases were recently discovered in Texas, including that of Eve Wiley, who testified during the hearings: born from a sperm donation, this woman contacted her donor through the official sperm donor registry. She even formed an actual relationship with him. However, when she did a DNA test to locate possible siblings, she discovered — to her astonishment — that she had no genetic connection with the donor chosen by her parents and was simply the daughter of her mother’s gynaecologist! “He is my biological father and it’s not a crime in the state of Texas”, she explained to the Court last month. “This is a person who you really trust”, explains Stéphanie Klick, the lawmaker who submitted the bill, “and they betrayed that trust. This would be considered a rape. Because you are doing something without consent”.

  

The law was passed unanimously. Now it only needs to be signed by the governor to take effect. The bill provides for prison sentences of six months to two years for physicians who knowingly use gametes other than those agreed with the parents, as well as a fine of up to $10,000.

 

Indiana also proposed a law this month penalizing fertility fraud, though it did not qualify it as sexual assault.

 

For further reading:

Dutch doctor accused of fathering at least 200 children in his own fertility clinic

Fertility fraud: are incriminated doctors protected by the law on sperm donor anonymity?

Bionews, Jennifer Willows (20/05/2019) – Texas bill would treat ‘fertility fraud’ as sexual assault

As the trend towards late motherhood continues, more and more women are considering oocyte freezing as insurance against age-related infertility. In the United Kingdom, figures published by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) confirm that oocyte freezing is developing rapidly and was up 10% last year.

 

A study was conducted using data from London’s two largest fertility clinics involving women who, between 2008 and 2017, planned to use their eggs after freezing them.

 

Some 129 women – one fifth of those who froze their oocytes – returned to use them. Of these, only 36% had undertaken this process for ‘social’ reasons, the remaining two thirds – i.e. 64% – did so for clinical reasons: for example, to cope with a shortage of sperm samples available when they came for treatment.

 

On average, 21% of women – one in five – conceived a child. Among those who undertook the procedure for social reasons, the rate dropped to 17%.

 

Women are on average 37 years old when they freeze their eggs and 98% of them are single then. Those who take these steps for ‘social’ reasons do so to ‘buy time’ to find a partner and start a family. They return to the clinic with the goal of having a child when they are 43 on average. Half of them are still single then, with 48% using sperm donation and choosing ‘single motherhood’.

 

Oocyte freezing does not give women any guarantee.

The Conversation, Zeynep Gurtin (23/05/2019)

Two babies were born following uterine transplants at Tübingen University Hospital in Germany: one in March and the other in May. Both women were suffering from Müllerian agenesis, a rare malformation (1/4,500) that had caused them to be born without a uterus and vagina. They were both transplanted with their own mother’s womb. A third German uterine transplant was performed in Tübingen in January, thus enabling this woman to have a baby from 2020 onwards given the mandatory one-year delay between transplantation and conception.

 

About forty uterine transplants have been performed worldwide, resulting in around ten births. Conception must necessarily be in-vitro (IVF) “because it would not be medically possible to transplant intact fallopian tubes and ensure that an egg lodges in the right place inside the uterus”. Birth is necessarily by caesarean section “to protect the uterus and vagina”, the latter being artificially constructed with surgery. There is “otherwise quite simply too great […] a risk that the transplanted organ will be damaged”. The cost of such an operation is “between what kidney and liver transplants cost”, i.e. “less than €50,000”. No less than 18 departments and 40 specialists in Tübingen were involved in these births.

 

It is possible to consider a second pregnancy once the uterus has healed properly.

 

In answer to the question “Will transgender women soon be able to have children?” the doctors in Tübingen reply that they do not think this possible. In particular, this is because “transgender patients do not have the ovaries and hormone production needed to maintain a healthy uterus in which a child can develop”.

Deutsche Welle, Fabian Schmidt (23/05/2019) – Two children born in Germany for the first time after uterus transplant

At the same period exactly a year ago, Sophie Braggins was a surrogate mother pregnant with the baby of her best friend, Toni Street, who has an autoimmune disease called Churg-Strauss syndrome. Lachie, a little boy, is now almost 10 months old. When “I look at Lachie“, explained Sophie, “I feel something quite special. I can’t deny that he has a special place in my heart”. Already a mother of two children, Sophie admits to feeling that he is one of hers.

 

Sophie explained that being a surrogate mother was not easy and that after giving birth to Lachie by caesarean section, she had difficulty balancing what her body hormones felt with what she knew by her mind’s reasoning. “Some nights I was in tears and felt futile… you do it, you feel slightly empty and, in some way, something is wrong”, she explained. “So you rely on your brain and mind to tell you that everything went well and that it’s a happy time”.

 

Sophie took hormones after the birth and began to feel better after about ten days. Although she does not regret being a surrogate mother, she is now adamant that it is something she would not do again: “Absolutely not”.

New Zealand Herald (24/05/2019) – Surrogate Sophie’ reveals how she really feels almost 1 year after giving birth to Toni Street’s baby boy

In the U.S., Indiana becomes the first state to criminalize “fertility fraud” or assisted human reproduction scams. The law, signed on 6 May by the Governor of Indiana, will come into force on 1 July. It defines ‘fertility fraud’ as “the use by fertility specialists of their own sperm in treatment without the knowledge and prior consent of their patients”.

 

“We were told that there was no law to charge Cline or others who commit similar deplorable acts and that the only thing to do would be to create a law”, says Matt White, one of many genetic children of the IVF specialist Dr Donald Cline. “If this problem recurs in the future, patients and children will be protected”. The law provides for compensation of up to $10,000 for victims of fertility fraud.

 

For further reading:

In Indiana, a new proposal to make it a crime for gynaecologists to use their own sperm to inseminate patients

Fertility fraud: are incriminated doctors protected by the law on sperm donor anonymity?

In Indiana, towards a crime of “fertility fraud”?

Bionews, Suzi Denton (13/05/2019) – Indiana first US state to write ‘fertility fraud’ into law

“A friend told me it was a good way to make easy money,” explained Chloé, a 23-year-old Belgian student who plans to use the €2,000 to buy a car or go on holiday. Sylvie has already received €8,000 for her four oocyte donations, which she used to “finance work in her new apartment,” and plans to make further donations in the future.

 

However, Belgian law is categorical [1]: marketing oocytes is prohibited and donation must be a “voluntary, gratuitous and altruistic” act. The law is certainly categorical but it is imprecise and does not mention any maximum amount. Hospitals therefore have a free hand to compensate donors as they see fit. At UZ Brussel Hospital, renowned for its generosity at €2,000 per donation, it is “obvious that prospective donors find out about and choose the best-paying hospital”.

 

With such attractive sums, supposedly altruistic and unselfish donations “take on a business aspect”. How are we to identify women’s real motives and ensure that the final payment is not their only reason? “Each donor candidate has to see a psychologist. If we realize that she is more interested in the money than the donation, she will not be accepted,” said Professor Christophe Blockeel, head of department at UZ Brussel. But, in the final analysis, it would seem that “to meet the ever-increasing demand for oocytes, some hospitals are turning a blind eye to donors’ motives,” meaning that “reimbursement of expenses is turning into payment”. Most donors do not even hide their financial motivations. Reimbursement or remuneration? “No matter what word is used,” said Sylvie, “it’s money we get for donating our eggs”. The ban on marketing oocytes remains, but “it is ultimately ethics that is damaged”. 

 

For further reading:

€900 compensation for purely unselfish egg donation?

Surrogacy industry in India: donors are poor and have no other way to earn money

 

[1] Law of 6 July 2007

RTBF, Sofia Cotsoglou (11/05/2019) – En Belgique, des jeunes filles donnent leurs ovules pour recevoir 2000 euros – L’enquête dans 7 à la Une

Reversing a 2017 court decision, the Italian Court of Appeal has ruled that the non-biological father of two children born to a surrogate mother abroad could not be designated as the children’s legal parent. In this case, a homosexual couple used an oocyte donor and a surrogate mother; the babies were born in Canada.

 

According to the court, only the genetic father can be registered as the legal parent of the children, even though both men appear as legal parents on the children’s Canadian birth certificates. The non-biological father could nevertheless become the legal parent of the children via adoption. A number of Italian court decisions have accepted adoption by homosexual couples.

 

The couple’s lawyer, Alexander Schuster, noted that the decision did not specify the non-biological parent’s sex, suggesting broader implications: heterosexual couples using surrogacy will also be affected.

BioNews, Antony Starza-Allen (13/05/2019) – Italy will not recognise intended parent of surrogate-born child, court rules

 

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, young Chinese female students who volunteer to donate their oocytes receive “payments” for “subsistence costs” that can be more than 400,000 yuan, i.e. about €50,000. The survey published yesterday by the Chinese newspaper reveals that these “volunteers” are recruited by posters displayed in universities and classified ads circulating on social networks. The criteria for calculating the transaction amount are mainly physical – measurements – and intellectual – level of study – and “eggs are generally traded at €2,500-€10,500, and much more in some cases”. These girls are “chosen like fruit on the market” a high school student – who lamented having sold her own oocytes – told international television stations in 2015.

 

It is very tempting for female students to use these sums “to pay for their studies,” and “the intermediaries obviously forget to mention the risks faced by young women”. Although Chinese law prohibits trade in oocytes, the criminal sanctions provided for in the 2003 decree do not seem to worry anyone and “trafficking continues”.

 

For further reading:

Indemnisées ou rémunérées ? Les donneuses d’ovocytes belges touchent jusqu’à 2000 € par don (article in French)

€900 compensation for purely unselfish egg donation?

Surrogacy industry in India: donors are poor and have no other way to earn money

Rfi (13/05/2019) – Chine: des étudiantes vendent leurs ovocytes pour financer leurs études

The journal Human Reproduction has published a study entitled Cancer Risk in Infertile Women: Analysis of US Claims Data. This research shows a link between infertility and increased cancer, although it cannot specify whether infertility itself, the causes of infertility or the treatment administered for medically assisted reproduction is to be blamed.

 

To reach these conclusions, the team followed up more than 64,000 women with fertility problems over a four-year period, and compared them to 3.1 million women with no fertility problems. About 2% of sub-fertile women were diagnosed with cancer, compared to 1.7% in the other group: “one in 49 infertile women reportedly developed cancer during the follow-up period, compared to one in 59 women among non-infertile women”. A more precise examination showed that infertile women have a 78% additional risk of developing uterine cancer, a 64% additional risk of developing ovarian cancer, and an additional 59% risk of developing gallbladder cancer.

 

The researchers explained that sub-fertile women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) are exposed to treatment that alters their hormone levels and balances; these changes may be involved in cancer development. In addition, infertility may have a genetic origin that could increase the risk of mutations and cancer.

 

The authors believe that further research, especially long-term, is needed.

News Medical (13/05/2019) Dr. Ananya Mandal , Fertility problems may raise risk of cancer in women

Eleven Cambodian surrogate mothers arrested in November (see Surrogacy in Cambodia: fifteen new arrests in Phnom Penh) were released on bail last month “in return for promising not to sell their child”. According to Chou Bun Eng, vice-president of the Cambodian National Committee for Counter Trafficking, “some of them have already given birth,” but all of them have “refused to provide the identity of the people for whom they had carried these children”.

 

A few months ago, thirty-two surrogate mothers accepted the same agreement (see Cambodia: 32 surrogate mothers released on bail). Surrogacy has been banned in Cambodia since 2016, but a draft law has been under discussion for several months and, pressured by several NGOs that support surrogacy, could reverse the trend. These NGOs consider it “scandalous” that surrogate mothers are arrested and say they are “not prepared” to raise the children they bear, most often for Chinese couples.

AFP (15/05/2019)

An Ohio appeals court upheld on Thursday a previous ruling that frozen embryos are not people. This decision was based on an Ohio law that states that an embryo is considered a person only if it can survive outside the womb.

 

The decision was taken following lawsuits filed for the destruction of 4,000 frozen embryos as a result of temperature fluctuations due to malfunctioning of the storage tanks at two fertility centres in Cleveland in March 2018. About a hundred families have filed lawsuits.

 

An attorney for the couple Rick and Wendy Penniman said that he will appeal Thursday’s ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court.

 

For further reading:

Embryos accidentally thawed: 8 more families are suing

United States – funeral service for embryos destroyed as a result of freezer malfunction

Embryos accidentally frozen in Ohio – are these classed as persons?

Une cour d’appel de l’Ohio, aux Etat-Unis, a confirmé jeudi une décision précédente, affirmant que les embryons congelés ne sont pas des personnes. Cette décision s’appuie sur une loi de l’Ohio stipulant que les embryons ne deviennent des personnes humaines qu’à partir du moment où ils sont capables de survivre en dehors de l’utérus maternel.

 

Cette décision a été prise dans le cadre des procès intentés pour la destruction de 4000 embryons congelés, à cause de la défaillance du maintien en température des congélateurs de deux centres de fertilité à Cleveland, en Ohio, en mars 2018. Une centaine de familles sont actuellement en procès.

 

L’un des avocats, celui de Rick et Wendy Penniman, a déjà annoncé qu’il ferait appel de la décision rendue devant la Cour Suprême de l’Ohio.

 

Pour aller plus loin :

Embryons décongelés accidentellement : 8 familles supplémentaires attaquent en justice

Embryons humains congelés perdus : l’hôpital poursuivi pour « mort injustifiée »

Aux Etats-Unis, un service funéraire mis en place pour des embryons détruits lors d’une panne de congélateur

Les embryons décongelés accidentellement en Ohio étaient-ils des personnes ?

Etats-Unis : des congélateurs endommagés dans une seconde clinique de fertilité, des clients veulent porter plainte

Ohio : Plus de 2000 ovocytes et embryons potentiellement endommagés

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has released its latest data on medically assisted reproduction in the United Kingdom.

 

More than 54,000 patients underwent 75,000 fertility treatments in 2017, with the number of IVF cycles increasing by 2.5% compared to 2016. In 2017, more than 20,500 children were born by IVF in the United Kingdom. Although more than 90% of the IVF cycles (68,380) performed were for heterosexual couples, the report also shows that same-sex couples, single women and surrogate mothers represent an increasing proportion of MAR.

 

The use of oocyte cryopreservation increased by 11% between 2016 and 2017, i.e. 1,463 cycles were started in 2017 [1]. According to the HFEA, the increased birth rate from using frozen embryos (up from 18% in 2016 to 23% in 2017) – which has thus reached the birth rate from using fresh embryos – is behind oocyte cryopreservation’s better press. However, the HFEA does not have a lot of experience on which to assess these practices. Only 581 oocytes were used in 2017 (159 in 2012).

 

Regarding in-vitro fertilization, the multiple birth rate increased from 24% in 2008 to 10% in 2017. Access to NHS-funded MAR is increasingly disparate: in Scotland, 62% of IVF cycles were funded by the NHS, compared to 50% in Northern Ireland, 39% in Wales and 35% in England. This lowest figure for England could continue to fall. However, clinics in England performed 86% of the IVF cycles that took place in the UK in 2017.

 

[1] Egg freezing in England: + 460% since 2010

The Guardian, Ian Sample (9/05/2019); BBC (9/05/2019)

Andrew Dvash-Banks, an American, and Elad Dvash-Banks, an Israeli, live in Canada and married in 2010. In September 2016, a surrogate mother gave birth to twins Ethan and Aiden for them, who were conceived using an egg donor and two sperm samples from the two men. The birth certificates only mention the two men, as fathers.

 

When the two men went to the US Consulate in Toronto shortly after the birth to apply for their sons’ American citizenship, the civil registrar asked them specifically about the circumstances in which Ethan and Aiden were conceived. The two men underwent a DNA test, which revealed that Aiden was the genetic son of Andrew, the American, and Ethan the son of Elad, the Israeli. As a result, Aiden was granted US citizenship but Ethan was denied it.

 

Encouraged by Immigration Equality, an LGBT immigrant rights organization, the two men sued the government to obtain American citizenship for the second twin. In February 2019, Los Angeles court judge John Walter ruled that this denial of citizenship was wrong “because American law does not require a child to prove a biological relationship with his or her parents if the parents were married when the child was born”.

 

For further reading:

• London twins, different fathers and unknown mother, conceived in Los Angeles and born to a Canadian surrogate mother…
• Twins born through surrogacy in Kenya with a female Indian donor and an Italian father are stateless
•  Automatic rights to US citizenship: impact on surrogacy market

Times of Israël, Marcy Oster (09/05/2019) – Naturalisation du fils d’un couple gay juif: le département d’Etat US fait appel

A federal criminal complaint has been filed against 37-year-old Grégory Blosser, from Florida, in connection with his business activities as head of company TSG, The Surrogacy Group, which he had operated since 2012. He is accused of setting up a scheme to defraud families who desire to have children using a pregnancy surrogate. At least seven families have been identified as victims from Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, as well as families from Australia and Germany.

 

More precisely, Gregory Blosser is accused of having solicited and accepted funds from clients seeking to have a child using a surrogate, promising to use those funds to support the surrogate during pregnancy, but he failed to do so. He was arrested in Florida on 29 April. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for wire fraud.

 

For further reading:

India: total ban on commercial surrogacy approved by the Indian Parliament

CBS Baltimore (02/05/2019) – Owner Of The Surrogacy Group Facing Federal Charge For Wire Fraud

In response to declining fertility rates in Scotland, the Conservatives have asked the government to consider “freezing oocytes” ^[1] for all women in Scotland. “Such opportunities are important and are increasingly becoming the norm throughout the world,” said Miles Briggs, one of the proposal’s initiators.

 

Over the past five years, the Scottish government has invested £28 million in infertility treatment. Female patients can be offered up to three cycles of treatment.

The Conservatives’ new proposal comes just when the fertility observatory at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) revealed last week that older women are being exploited by in-vitro fertilization clinics “trading on hope”, despite a low success rate.

 

[1] Egg freezing involves collecting a woman’s oocytes, freezing them and then thawing them later on if medically assisted reproduction treatment is used.

The Scotsman, Kevan Christie (27/04/2019)

 

“Faced with these undeniable advances in managing infertility, potential problems have arisen from their use”. During a debate organised by the European Lawyers’ Union (UAE) in Marseille, Gérard Abitbol – the UAE’s dean of honorary presidents – addressed a panel of professionals, the majority of whom were judges, doctors and lawyers.

 

“MAR and surrogacy bear a false family resemblance since they both have a common goal,” he pointed out. This “rhetoric is carefully orchestrated by those who want to make a smooth transition to surrogacy after first allowing MAR”. Taking stock of the legislation on MAR and surrogacy adopted by France and other states, he nevertheless observed that “of all the countries in Europe, France remains the most faithful to the principle of the unavailability of the human body enshrined in its Civil Code“. 

 

Surrogacy presupposes a contract between the sponsors and the surrogate mother.  “Whether or not it is done free of charge,” he explained, “it is the same annihilation of the person. The unavailability of the human body stems from the unavailability of parentage according to article 323 of the Civil Code“. Abitbol stated that “a woman cannot be used as a means of reproduction; her body is unavailable for such a use“. To conclude his remarks, he stressed that “turning pregnancy and childbirth into a paid service is the greatest violence against women since the slave period“.

Journal spécial des sociétés, Gérard Abitbol (20/04/2019) – Union des avocats européens : Notion de parent et besoin d’enfant

 

Researchers at Columbia University in New York say they “have created embryos” for four patients and are ready to implant them. However, “they face a legal impasse”. The law prohibits the FDA from examining “any application for human research involving a human embryo intentionally created or modified to include a heritable genetic modification”. In 2015, John Zhang, a New York-based “fertility specialist”, travelled to Mexico to bypass American law and deliver the first “three-parent baby” (see Three-parent IVF: John Zhang singled out by the FDA ; Three-parent IVF: a birth, uncertainty but no long-term follow-up).

 

Dietrich Egli, who led the research at Columbia University (see  Genetically modified human embryos in the United States), as well as Shouhkrat Mitalipov, another American scientist interested in three-parent IVF, initiated a series of meetings to develop recommendations to “persuade  U.S. lawmakers to lift the ban on three-parent IVF”.

 

According to Marcy Darnovsky, attorney and Director of the Center for Genetics and Society, allowing three-parent IVF would be a breach of the standards regarding the genetic modification of embryos and germ cells using CRISPR.

 

For the time being, the three-parent embryos have been frozen.

STAT, Emily Mullin (18/04/2019)