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This Note addresses the ethical and legal implications of having an unregulated egg donation system in the United States. After discussing the medical procedures involved with egg donation, the current state of compensation for donation in the United States, and a brief comparison to the regulation and compensation approaches taken in other countries, the Note argues that by permitting uncapped compensation for egg donation, the United States both encourages the commodification of women's bodies through the creation of a competitive marketplace for eggs, and puts donors at risk by allowing donation procedures to continue without long-term data on the health consequences faced by donors. The Note concludes that compensation for egg donation should either be banned or systematically capped to prevent women from becoming for-pur chase marketplace producers of bodily goods, and offers as a possible solution that the United States should establish a regulated system similar to that in the United Kingdom. Finally, the Note focuses on the dearth of studies on the health outcomes faced by egg donors and suggests that, regardless of the compensation system enacted, a national monitoring organization must be created to oversee the egg donation industry and provide a means of amassing, synthesizing, and disseminating information about the long-term health consequences faced by donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the need of a pro-active regulation of cross-border egg and surrogacy markets. Topics discussed include ways to regulate surrogacy market failures; conduct of both cross-border markets and the main failures that raise the need for regulation in each market; and minimalistic and a pro-active approach to regulate the markets.

Gamete donation offers a unique opportunity to compare men and women's relationships to reproductive decision-making, unlike other reproductive processes, which typically involve women's bodies much more asymmetrically. I address medical and reproductive decision-making by examining how a gamete donor's partner may be involved in the donation process. Some countries explicitly involve a donor's partner by legally requiring spousal consent for donation, but this is not the case for the U.S. In the absence of any formal regulation, what are the expectations for involving a donor's partner? Through a content analysis of materials from donation programs across the U.S., I examine how donation programs configure the partner's role. Overall, I find that there are quite different expectations for partner involvement in egg versus sperm donation. Such differences, I argue, both stem from and reinforce existing issues navigating boundaries between intimate relationships and women's medical and reproductive autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our recent working paper (Ambuehl, Ockenfels, and Stewart 2017) shows theoretically and experimentally that people with higher costs of information processing respond more to an increase in the incentive for a complex transaction, and decide to participate based on a worse understanding of its consequences. Here, we address the resulting tradeoff between the principle of informed consent and the principle of free contract. Respondents to our vignette study on oocyte donation overwhelmingly favor the former and support policies that require donors to thoroughly understand the transaction. This finding helps design markets that are not only efficient but also considered ethical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses U.S. federal income taxation law in relation to donations involving human body materials such as kidneys, sperm, and hair as of 2017, and it mentions the American Tax Court case Perez v. Commissioner which deals with the legal rights of a paid donor of ova and U.S. tax exclusions. The possible taxation of blood donations is examined, along with long-term capital gains taxes, the legal rights and obligations of blood donors, and America's Internal Revenue Service.

As the growth in demand for egg donors is met with an increasing number of women willing to supply their eggs, changes need to be made to the way egg donors, and other similarly situated workers, are classified in the employment context. Most donor contracts are employer- created forms that designate the donors as independent contractors and thus spare the clinic the duty of providing employment benefits. Unlike other on-demand service providers, such as Uber-drivers, that have recently sought re-classification as employees, women who donate eggs are subject to physically invasive procedures and long-term health risks that particularly obviate the need for the protections granted employees. This Note begins by using the current tests available to employers in determining worker classification to show that even under the current framework, egg donors are employees. Further, this Note uses the unique platform of egg donors, women who provide an important short-term service at the cost of long-term health risks, to push for a change in the current classification system. Specifically, it suggests the creation of a new category--the dependent contractor--to accommodate the growing on-demand workforce while not crippling the business models that allow for the on-demand company's survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When it comes to young healthy women "donating" their eggs, America has a regulation problem. This Note explains the science behind the harvesting of human eggs, focusing on potential egg donors, and describes the specific factors that make egg donation a unique type of transaction. It describes the current regulatory status of the assisted reproductive technology industry in the United States and highlights the ways in which this scheme fails to protect egg "donors." This Note concludes with a call for comprehensive regulation of the assisted reproductive technology industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to illustrate egg donation's incompletely commodified status through an analysis of two cases of first impression, highlighting the tensions that arise from attempts to reconcile egg donation's reality as a robust commercial industry with the nonmarket norms that traditionally underlie reproduction. Antitrust and taxation litigation may seem unlikely sources for guidance in navigating the tensions in egg donation's uncertain place between the worlds of gift and market exchange. Nonetheless, this litigation forces an explicit consideration of how egg donation is perceived, talked about, and operationalized, and where along the gift-market spectrum it fits. These cases also engage familiar questions of commodification, coercion, and exploitation, which are surprisingly central litigation issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Stanovništvo is the property of Demographic Research Center of Institute of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the laws for regulating egg donation industry in the U.S. Topics discussed include role of fertility clinics in getting eggs from financially abused college students by supporting them financially, role of ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome in causing infertility, and the need of extra medical care and supervision while extraction of eggs. It further discusses the provisions of paying compensation in case of negative impact on donor's health.

In this article, the author discusses his experiences and efforts in becoming a successful parent via compensated surrogacy and egg donation. He reports about various state and federal legal challenges faced by him including Washington State's criminal prohibition on compensated surrogacy alongwith federal guidelines issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the use of sperm by gay donors in the process of in vitro fertilization.

Openness and children's 'right to know' about their genetic background have become key issues in debates about donor conception and a significant shift towards transpar-ency has taken place in policy frameworks. But whereas openness is now supported in policy, the issue might be less of a 'done deal' for parents themselves; evidence suggest that many still hesitate to disclose. This has caused concern among policy-makers and campaigners, putting parents under increasing pressure to tell. In this context it is important to seek to better understand parents' experiences, and why it is that some might feel uncertain about openness. I explore the issue by drawing on original empir-ical data from a study exploring donor conception and family life, and I show that there are significant insights to be gained from looking at the impact of openness in families. I explore four particular sets of dilemmas introduced by openness, namely decision-making and family boundaries; telling children; telling the wider family and navigating competing moral doctrines. I pursue the argument that an important factor to consider in understanding disclosure and its difficulties is the importance and complexity of family relationships and the impact they have on parents' decision-making process. This leads me to argue for a change in direction in debates on openness and for the need for an increased appreciation of the vitality of relationships. I also suggest that openness needs to be brought into conversation and balanced against other factors which greatly influence children's and adult's personal lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the scope and effectiveness of formal donor identity registers cur-rently in operation in assisted conception regimes in Australia and the UK. In particu-lar, it examines the function of voluntary registers which are intended to fill the gaps left by 'central' identity registers which mandate timed release of donor identity on re-quest of donor-conceived adults. There are three 'gaps' left by central registers identi-fied here: conceptions which took place prior to the operation of the relevant registers; parents and offspring who desire access to identifying information or a means of mak-ing contact prior to the age set for information release; and parents and offspring who desire information not available under current registers, specifically, identifying infor-mation or a means of making contact with other offspring from the same donor. The article reflects on interviews with a set of 21 parents who had undertaken donor con-ception in Australia through licensed IVF treatment concerning their understandings of disclosure regimes and wishes for, and experience of, seeking information and con-tact. Voluntary registers established by government bodies in Australia and the UK have largely failed to deliver benefits, and indeed may offer a misleading promise to users, because they have given rise to such a small proportion of matches. These regis-ters are 'passive' in that there is no outreach to parties not on the register to invite them to join when there is a match waiting there. However, voluntary registers could be reframed and resourced on a more facilitative basis to assist users. I propose that formal voluntary registers could be more usefully remade as 'active' registers, making contact with possible participants and offering intermediary services and counselling to establish and communicate expectations and to offer mediated contact, including contact without identity disclosure. Active voluntary registers could adapt current structures into a more flexible and responsive system capable of operating both pro-spectively and retrospectively. I contend that this is a better outcome than the current polarization between an inability to access information for many, on the one hand, and proposals such as retrospective identity disclosure without consent, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches a piece of Canadian criminal legislation by analyzing the law's extraterritorial effect and putting the law's practical import within a mobile and global context-and from that perspective concludes that the domestic law is practically and morally impoverished. The law in question is section 7 of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA), which criminally prohibits the purchase, offer to purchase, and advertising for purchase of gametes from a donor or from a person acting on behalf of a donor. While large swathes of the AHRA were held to violate the division of powers in a 2010 Supreme Court reference, section 7 remains standing as valid federal legislation, though effectively almost never enforced. Some scholars, notably Francoise Baylis and Jocelyn Downie, urge more rigorous enforcement both within Canada and extraterritorially, drawing on common law principles that stretch the long law of Canadian penal statutes across national borders. Sara Cohen and Susan Drummond argue that not only is the extraterritorial reach of the Canadian executive drastically shorter than Baylis and Downie might wish, a growing and elite transnational reproductive traffic has outpaced and undermined the moral legitimacy of the law domestically. They argue that any well-founded policy aspirations behind section 7 are far more likely to be met with the repeal of section 7 in favour of an administrative regime for the regulation of reproductive technologies. The result would be less hypocritical and more democratic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Law & Society/Revue Canadienne Droit et Societe (Cambridge University Press) is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study analyzes 435 oocyte donor recruitment advertisements to assess whether entities recruiting donors of oocytes to be used for in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures include a disclosure of risks associated with the donation process in their advertisements. Such disclosure is required by the self-regulatory guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and by law in California for advertisements placed in the state. We find very low rates of risk disclosure across entity types and regulatory regimes, although risk disclosure is more common in advertisements placed by entities subject to ASRM's self-regulatory guidelines. Advertisements placed in California are more likely to include risk disclosure, but disclosure rates are still quite low. California-based entities advertising outside the state are more likely to include risk disclosure than non-California entities, suggesting that California's law may have a modest 'halo effect.' Our results suggest that there is a significant ethical and policy problem with the status quo in light of the known and unknown risks of oocyte donation and the importance of risk disclosure to informed consent in the context of oocyte donation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the legal rights of donor-conceived children in America, and it mentions U.S. constitutional rights, the laws associated with donor conception in the country, and the concept of double disclosure. Parental rights and children's interests are mentioned, along with respect for familial autonomy and various aspects of U.S. family and health laws. Sperm and egg (ovum) donations are examined, along with the nation's fertility industry and assisted reproductive technology.

The article focuses on exploitation within the U.S. organ donation and egg donation schemes in 2013. Topics include why female egg donation is allowed under U.S. organ donation laws, compensation for organ donation, and why the two different types of donation are treated differently by the U.S. legislature. Information is provided on the U.S. National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 (NOTA).

The article focuses on the Australian federal court ruling stating that it is illegal for women to profit from the donation of their eggs for use in medical research. Topics include the law regarding human embryo research, the 'egg sharing' scheme in place in Great Britain, and how the donation of organs differs from female egg extraction for medical research.

The article focuses on the law regarding embryo donation for reproductive use in Australia in 2013. Topics include the clinical policies and ethical guidelines regarding embryo donation, the willingness of women to donate embryos to others for reproductive use, and the controversy surrounding directed donations. Information is provided on the external barriers to donation.

In this article, we look at the regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) from the perspectives of service providers and regulators in three Australian states, each with a different approach to regulating ART. We explore how the interests of the child were considered in the development of recent legislative changes, namely, the establishment of central donor registers and changes to eligibility criteria for accessing ART. From participants’ perspectives, abolishing donor anonymity is considered to be a key way in which the interest of the child can be preserved through legislation. The imposition of eligibility criteria on who can access ART is considered more controversial. We suggest that the welfare of the child principle is used to justify restrictions to ART access that are politically expedient. In fact, the disparate range of approaches to the regulation of ART in Australia provides the potential for the welfare of the child to be undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on disclosure laws regarding the release of information on reproductive donors and the impact of the Victorian Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act of 1984. Topics include how the Act impacted donor practice and the medical treatment of donor-conceived individuals and the 'Time to Tell' public education campaign created by the Victorian Infertility Treatment Authority (ITA).

The article focuses on the disclosure of information of gamete donors and how the parental rights of donor parents differ from the rights of legal parents or guardians. Topics include the concerns that some gamete donors have about the release of their donor information and the legal rights of donor-conceived individuals.

The article focuses on the perception of donor conception by donor-conceived children and adults. Topics include the legality of early parental disclosure, calls for greater transparency in collaborative reproduction, and donor-conceived individuals' access to genetic and medical information. Information is provided on anonymity and nondisclosure laws.

The article focuses on the rights of donor conceived individuals in Australia. Topics include the privacy standard expected by donors, the moral and legal basis for the release of relevant medical information concerning donor conceived individuals, and the legal protection of donors under Australian law.

The article focuses on information rights regarding donor conception in Australia in 2012. Topics include information rights for individuals separated through adoption or conceived through donors, the use of contact vetoes to protect the privacy rights of donors, and the right to know laws governing genetic origin information.

The article focuses on retrospective access for children conceived by donor in Australia. Topics include the medical and ethical issues supporting wider access for donor conceived individuals, the history of information access in Australia, and right to know laws. Information is provided on if the withholding of medical information can be considered discrimination.

The article focuses on sperm donor anonymity and how it is a controversial issue in the U.S. Information is provided on how several countries including Great Britain, Sweden, and Germany require sperm and egg donors to supply identifying information to be placed in a donor registry for the purpose of allowing a donor child the ability to find their biological donors when they turn eighteen years old.

The article discusses whether donees of sperm or egg have the right to know the identity of their donor. It compares the rules and parties' interests between adoption and gamete donation, and examines the contractual issues that may arise in the latter and the public policy arguments on keeping the donor's identity anonymous. It explains the need to maintain anonymity for sperm and egg donors considering fairness, administrability, and social policy. It also emphasizes the significance of preserving the donor's anonymity in respecting the privacy rights of the parties involved.

The article focuses on the legal and ethical questions surrounding the release of information on donors to a donor-conceived individual. Topics include the privacy rights of donors, a donor-conceived individual's right to medical background information from donors, and the legality of compiling donor information for a donor database.

The article focuses on rights claims related to donor-conceived offspring on the basis on section 15 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A court case Olivia Pratten v Attorney General of British Columbia and College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario where biological progenitor is searched by a donor conceived offspring Olivia Pratten. Also discussed is the donor anonymity's history in Canada.

As of 2008, surrogacy is legal and openly practised in various places; Japan, however, has no regulations or laws regarding surrogacy. This paper reports the situation of surrogacy in Japan and in five other regions (the USA, the UK, Taiwan, Korea and France) to clarify the pros and cons of prohibiting surrogacy, along with the problems and issues relating to surrogacy compensation. Not only in a country such as France that completely prohibits surrogacy within the country, but also in a country such as the UK that allows non-commercial surrogacy, infertile couples travel overseas for the purpose of surrogacy. In addition, some couples might seek underground surrogacy if the government prohibits surrogacy. If an intended parent couple and a surrogate make an agreement among themselves and then a problem occurs, they cannot ask for support from professionals or bring a case to court, as can be observed in South Korea and Taiwan. We also conclude that there is little difference between commercial surrogacy and non-commercial surrogacy in the absence of a clear definition of ‘reasonable expenses.’ In the UK, the law does not allow surrogates to receive compensation. However, in reality, there may be little difference between the amounts paid to surrogates for profit in the US and those paid to surrogates for reasonable expenses in the UK. We conclude that the issue of surrogacy demands further discussion in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Anonymous oocyte donation and participation in organ and blood/tissue donation programmes were studied specifically among Irish fertility patients. Methods. An anonymous questionnaire measured patient perceptions of, and participation in, blood/organ/tissue donor programmes, and to record opinion on anonymous donor oocyte compensation. Results. A total of 337 patents were sampled; 56.7% had no children. None had participated in a donor oocyte programme either as donor or recipient. At baseline, 19.6% had previous in vitro fertilisation experience, more than one-third (35.9%) had donated blood anonymously, 19.9% were organ/tissue donors and 52.2% indicated that anonymous oocyte donors should receive some compensation. We found patients with infertility for extended periods were more likely to view oocyte donation favourably, compared to those with infertility of shorter durations ( p = 0.022, by Krusksal–Wallis Rank Sum test). Average recommended compensation for anonymous oocyte donor was €2177 (range €200–€9500), and most (77.2%) favoured confidential protections for recipient and donor identity. Conclusion. This is the first investigation of blood and organ/tissue donation features among fertility patients in Ireland; the rate of blood donation in this group was more than 10 times higher than in the general Irish population. Protection of anonymity for both donors and recipients was supported by most patients, even opponents of compensated anonymous donation. Further studies should clarify patient perceptions about oocyte donation as a function of involvement in organ/tissue procurement programmes and blood banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the legal complications that arise from assisted reproductive technology (ART) such as surrogacy, second-parent adoptions, and in vitro fertilization (IVF). Topics include the rights of a sperm of egg donor, the rights of intended parents, and surrogacy laws in Tennessee in 2013.

The article reports on criticisms for the proposed guideline governing surrogate mothers and egg, sperm and embryo donors in Canada. Topics discussed include the critics' claim that the process is not inclusive and has not been well publicized, the provisions for paying surrogates and donors under Canadian law and the Canadian Standards Association's (CSA) proposed reimbursement standards.

The article focuses on the rights of information access for donor-conceived children. Topics include confidentiality laws in Australia, requests for law reform from the Victorian Parliament Law Reform Committee (LRC), and the rules regarding confidential information release. Information is provided on the preservation of private medical records.

The article discusses research by Dieter Egli of the New York Stem Cell Foundation laboratory, published in the journal "Nature," which found that oocytes can be used to reprogram differentiated cells and create embryonic stem (ES) cells. Egli's method fused nucleated oocytes with adult cells to create cells with both properties of ES and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are also triploid and therefore would not create viable embryos. Other topics include research by stem cell expert Kevin Eggan on genes necessary for transcription, the legality of providing compensation for oocyte donation, and implications the research has for human cloning. INSET: Where Do Human Eggs Come From?.

The article reports on the call of Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather from Mount Royal, Quebec for a full commercialization in the trade of eggs, sperm and contract pregnancy. He calls for the decriminalization of donors and surrogates governed by the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. It notes the testimonies of people born through traded gametes claiming that paying biological progenitors turns offspring into commercial goods.