Sperm donors would be
able to veto pregnancies under proposed NSW legislation,
even after an embryo has been created from their genetic
material.
Critics say this would
compromise the rights of infertile couples and expose
women to needless IVF procedures.
The provision would
allow consent to be "modified or revoked by the [donor]
up until the time the resulting embryo is actually used
in a treatment procedure".
The law would also
prevent women from using frozen embryos from a
relationship that had since ended, unless their former
husband or partner consented.
In explanatory notes to
a draft bill that would regulate aspects of IVF
treatment not covered by federal laws, health department
legal advisers said there had been conflicting
submissions on whether donors should have rights to
control the use of embryos.
Some submissions to the
public consultation process said all control should rest
with the woman or couple for whom the embryo had been
created.
Others insisted it was "not appropriate to facilitate
the birth of the child knowing that one genetic parent
was opposed to that birth".
The latter view had
been adopted in the draft bill in "the best interests of
any resulting child", the advisers said.
But Sandra Dill,
executive director of the support and education group
ACCESS Infertility Network, said men donated sperm to
help infertile couples, and it was not logical for new
consent to be needed at every stage of the treatment
procedure.
If the law was passed,
couples would have to seek further consent from a sperm
donor to use a frozen embryo stored after a previous IVF
cycle, she said.
This could cause
"unreasonable distress in circumstances where a couple
had stored embryos because they had legitimate
aspirations to have a second or third child that was a
genetic sibling of an existing one".
Ms Dill instead
proposed a "cooling off period" after banking sperm but
before an embryo could be created from it. This would
"allow the donor time to reflect on the decision and
withdraw consent if doubts surfaced before treatment
began".
Allowing sperm donors
to veto the use of embryos would override the interests
of the couple for whom the embryo was intended,
including the woman, who had to undergo an extensive
medical procedure to produce an egg.
