Ethics Conference: Happy I Attended

Since I got back from Toronto I have not had much time to truly start putting my reactions down to paper. Overall I am very happy I decided to attend. I got to meet a number opf folks I have only corresponded with or have read their blogs or just seen on TV. I spoke as a DI Dad and also updated folks as to where the Yahoo Group is and my desire to start a NY area based in person support group. I only wish I had written out what I wanted to say as I missed a number of points I wanted to make by speaking off the cuff.

It was quite a long day. I started the day by getting up at 330 am here in NYC, leaving at 430 am for the airport, arriving in Toronto at 730am only to return back to New York that evening and walk back into my New York apartment at 930pm.

The conference stayed pretty much focused on ethics for most of the speakers. I will try to give the conference the recap it deserves later this week but it is going to be tough as work is nuts, Yom Kippur is this Thursday and then on Friday my wife and I have our first real vacation in years leaving the kids with her parents for 4 days and 3 nights. God help them all.

Oct 4 Symposium: Putting Ethics At The Core Of Gamete Donation Practice

On Octiber 4, 2008, the Canadian group Infertility Network is sponsoring, in Toronto, an all day seminar titled "Getting it Right - Putting Ethics At The Core Of Gamete Donation Practice". I am attending both as a parent personally and as one of a few parents who will speak about our experiences.

When I was last at a Infertility Network symposium the number of attendees was about even with invited presenters. I encourage anyone who lives nearby to attend as the list of speakers / presenters is quite good. I am concerned as to what I can say as I have spoken my mind on most issues in print and on-line and I am unsure what I can bring to the seminar that is different. Like last time the presence of a DI Dad is an anomaly and interesting one to most people.

As far as speaking on the general topic about ethics, do I feel it was unethical to create two lives separating them from their genetic past?

The attorney in me wants to ask how could it have been unethical if I had no intent to be unethical and did not see the issue from that position when we made the decision to use DI. Grammatically I am not sure I worded that correctly but my point is like many infertile coupdles we were dealing with ourselves first and did not look at the issue from the perspective of the life (lives) we were creating. So perhaps then the answer is we were unethical as igmorance of a moral issue is probably no excuse.

Now that we are past ther act of creation, right or wrong, the next question is are we ethically raising these children in light of their conception story? I believe we are. We decided long ago that we were telling them their storiesas early as we could so we can build upon the story and fill in what blanks we can as time goes on. For us the only ethical issue left to us was solved when we decided to tell and te reaization that the children's interests are greater than ours in this respect.

More later.

Jewish Bioethics & a Call for Access to Donor Medical Records

no. 364

In the Thursday, May 3, 2007 edition of Washington Jewish Week Online Edition staff writer Eric Fingerhut interviews Rabbi Elliott Dorff, a frequent writer on Jewish Law and Bioethics. Within the article the Rabbi called for greater access to donor medical records for donor conceived individuals. The pertinent excerpts of the article are printed below:

“Among the most important bioethical matters in the Jewish community today is infertility and the issues that arise from it, said Dorff.

With Jews getting married later in life, women have a tougher time conceiving children and couples are increasingly turning to donor sperm or eggs.

But when those children become teenagers, and want to find out "who [they] are," they can't look to their father and mother to see the exact sources, for instance, of their various personality traits.

Thus, he would like to see donor banks collect and make information available for children. He pointed out that there are some facilities already doing this, such as a California sperm bank that tapes interviews of donors talking about themselves and allows children to get information on their biological heritage. “

My comment:

Many, not all, cryobanks here in the US already provide some data regarding the health of the donors. What I think needs reformation is some sort of standardization of that information across all banks with some sort of minimum level of info that must be provided. I am not even talking about testing of the donor sperm but merely standardization of the info that must be available to the parents and the donor conceived individuals. Furthermore that info must be made available for a minimum of some period of years, at least say 25 years past the last date sperm samples were sold so that DCPs who were not provided that info by their parents have at least som shot of finding the info. We not even getting into medical conditions that arise after the donations have stopped. That's another issue which I am not sure we can ever mandate.

According to the article:

“[Rabbi] Dorff will be speaking on "Bioethics: A Progressive Jewish Perspective" at Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda on Sunday, May 6, 2007, at 6:30 p.m. The program is co-sponsored by the Institute for Science and Judaism”

Ethics: Donor Gametes - In General and Between Parents and Children

no. 360

There was an interesting Opinion piece published in the April 27, 2007 Ottawa Citizen that I learned about due to Diane Allen's posting about it on the Yahoo DSR Discussion group. It was an opinion piece regarding the ethics of donor gametes. The piece was written in response to the news story regarding the freezing of a mother's ova (eggs) for later use by her daughter who is infertile. An interesting piece. I admit I need to read through it again to fully absorb it. The author is Margaret Somerville who is founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law.

I have presented the full article on this blog's Annex but at risk of being accused of publishing spoilers the last three paragraphs of the article are:

"Ova freezing is just one more example that raises the broad question: How should we deal ethically with scientific advances in reproductive technologies? I propose that all these technologies must be ethically evaluated primarily through the lens of the children who will result from their use.

That lens requires that, at the very least, we first do no harm to those children; that we respect their fundamental human rights to come into being from natural biological origins; and that we act in their "best interests," in particular, in preserving their natural genetic relationships.

Except for concern about physical risks to children from using reproductive technologies, the focus up to now has been almost entirely on the rights of adults, who want to have a child, to use these technologies -- that is, only the adult lens has been used. That has caused a failure to consider, in the depth and breath required, both what ethics requires with respect to the children conceived through the use of reproductive technologies and the fundamental human rights of those children with respect to their coming into being."

I don't think anyone will be surprised by her conclusions but I do think the entire piece worth reading to understand her reasoning.

"Embryo" Bank Stirs Ethics Fears

no. 323

On Saturday, January 6, 2006, Washington Post ran a story regarding the Abraham Center of Life, based out of San Antonio, TX, discussing the Center's advertising that they are offering the world's "First Human Embryo Bank" for couples dealing with infertility issues. Articles regarding this facility have popped up now and again and it is no surprise that with the last few weeks worth of Katrina Clark stories, Mary Cheney stories, and cloned food stories that this one is trotted out again.

The reporter, Rob Stein, hits all the relevant issues and does note that ethically the service provided is similar to what is currently available in that couples or individuals can now arrange for donor sperm and donor eggs separately and that ethically that has not amounted to the same level of interest that the Abraham Center engenders.

My only comments are, echoing again the authors, that where an individual / couple arrange for DI and DE they are the ones choosing the combination as opposed to the Abraham Center making the choice for commercial reasons as to what combinations they believe individuals / couples woud want. While it is clear that when individuals make the choice they are doing so for their own personal reasons here it does begin to make the line grayer than it already is.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the service provided by the Abraham Center but so far this is my understanding of what it means to offer the World's First Human Embryo Bank. A copy of the Post article will be posted in the Annex to this blog.