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An article in The Scotsman suggests that new regulations the United Kingdom is imposing on fertility treatments there are likely to force couples to travel abroad for fertility treatments, which would have the unintended consequences of diminishing the availability of fertility treatments for less wealthy women and couples.
Beginning in April 2005, fertility clinics are required to permanently retain the identity of all sperm and egg donors. When the children produced from donated eggs and sperm reach 18, they will legally be able to force fertility clinics to divulge the identity of the egg or sperm donor.
The likely result, not surprisingly, will be a severe downturn in donors. Already, according to The Scotsman, many clinics are “reporting severe shortages of donors” ahead of implementation of the regulations. Dr. Gillian Lockwood, medical director at Midland Fertility Services, tells the newspaper,
The waiting list for donor eggs has gone in my clinic from about six months to 18 months to two years. If you’re 39 and you know that your only chance of having a baby is by using donor eggs, what are you going to do? Wait two years or go to Spain?
Spain, which protects donor anonymity, is likely to be one of a number of popular destinations for “fertility tourism,” where women can travel and obtain treatment quickly and then return to the UK. In essence, if these fears pan out, there will still be donor anonymity, it will just be very expensive for patients.
Something similar happened in Sweden which abandoned donor anonymity in 1985. Many Swedish couples simply travel to Denmark as sperm and egg donors fell after the end of anonymity. The trend is driven, in party, by the parent(s)-to-be’s preference that the sperm or egg donor remain permanently anonymous. In recent years, more Swedish women have conceived through artificial insemination carried out in Denmark than in Sweden.
Source:
Couples turn to ‘fertility tourism’ as crisis hits IVF. Rhiannon Edward, The Scotsman, December 31, 2004.
Sperm donors ‘want to keep anonymity’. Matthew Hill, The BBC, October 15, 2002.
The Will Fertility Tourism Increase as the UK Adopts New Fertility Treatment Regulations? by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.