Article Text
Abstract
Under current UK law, an embryo cannot be transferred to a woman's uterus without the consent of both of its genetic parents, that is both of the people from whose gametes the embryo was created. This consent can be withdrawn at any time before the embryo transfer procedure. Withdrawal of consent by one genetic parent can result in the other genetic parent losing the opportunity to have their own genetic children. We argue that offering couples only one type of consent agreement, as happens at present, is too restrictive. An alternative form of agreement, in which one genetic parent agrees to forego the right to future withdrawal of consent, should be available alongside the current form of agreement. Giving couples such a choice will better enable them to store embryos under a consent agreement that is appropriate for their circumstances. Allowing such a choice, with robust procedures in place to ensure the validity of consent, is the best way to respect patient autonomy.
- Autonomy
- cryobanking of sperm
- cryopreservation of sperm
- Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act
- in-vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer
- legal aspects: bills, laws and cases
- oocytes or embryos
- ova or embryos
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
The three authors contributed equally to this paper.
Funding PDS was supported by a Wellcome Trust VIP Fellowship.
Competing interests GMH is an external adviser to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and is scientific director of the Centre for Reproductive Medicine at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Other content recommended for you
- Multiplex parenting: IVG and the generations to come
- Creating and sacrificing embryos for stem cells
- Research Ethics, Science Policy, and Four Contexts for the Stem Cell Debate
- Using stem cell-derived gametes for same-sex reproduction: an alternative scenario
- Observational retrospective study of UK national success, risks and costs for 319,105 IVF/ICSI and 30,669 IUI treatment cycles
- Predicting the chances of a live birth after one or more complete cycles of in vitro fertilisation: population based study of linked cycle data from 113 873 women
- What exactly is an exact copy? And why it matters when trying to ban human reproductive cloning in Australia
- Correlation of IVF outcomes and number of oocytes retrieved: a UK retrospective longitudinal observational study of 172 341 non-donor cycles
- The need for donor consent in mitochondrial replacement
- IVF twins: buy one get one free?