Sperm, eggs and the law

As a patients' advocate who attended the Senate Health Committee hearings on Bill C-6, I take exception to Kristian Gravenor's misrepresentation of the law's ban on commercial sperm and egg donation and the process that informed it [Cover, "Infertile Ground," Aug. 25].

Pro-life groups weren't represented at the hearings on assisted human reproduction (AHR). Their concerns regarding embryonic-stem-cell research - a separate issue - were brought forward at another set of hearings. In-vitro fertilization was never in question. Commercial surrogacy, which Gravenor neglects to mention, was a hotly contested issue. Concerns about third-party donors weren't limited to payment either. The law also banned coercion and inducement in surrogacy and sperm and egg donation, particularly of minors.

Nor was there any attempt to treat AHR and cloning interchangeably. Although the House and Senate ultimately voted for the bill as a whole, a reading of all transcripts will show that the various issues encompassed in the legislation (i.e. AHR, embryonic-stem cell research, reprogenetics and ultimately cloning) were treated separately in the hearings and parliamentary deliberations.

Patients' groups and fertility workers were not unanimously opposed to the ban. Some of the strongest supporters of the ban included the Infertility Network of Canada (an infertility patients' group) and APPART (an organization representing adult donor children), and progressive organizations such as the Canadian Women's Health Network, along with leading experts in law, medicine, bioethics and infertility counselling. Conservative forces opposed to the ban were represented by the multi-billion dollar reproductive medicine industry that has a vested economic interest in the outcome.

Bill C-6 bans the purchase and sale of children through pre-conception arrangements, not only because it is an affront to human dignity, but because it is a hallmark of slavery and a violation of human rights. A second reason for the ban is the need to remove the financial incentive to act against self-interest. The demographic profile of donors and surrogate mothers is one of people of marginal status: minors, the poor and the mentally ill.

Current research shows that the motivation of egg donors and surrogates is deeply flawed and rooted in trauma: they have histories of sexual abuse and/or suffer post-abortion stress, while some surrogate mothers who have previously given up a baby for adoption, have unresolved grief and loss issues. Some egg donors have their own fertility problems (this case involves so-called egg sharing, a violation of the Canada Health Act: a patient doesn't have to donate tissue or blood in order to get medical treatment.) One can only guess what motivates young men to engage in this new form of prostitution for a few dollars.

A third compelling reason for the ban weighs the serious health risks that go hand-in-glove with AHR. Women and children are particularly at risk, although sperm donors may contract infections. Egg donors and gestating women are at risk of developing illnesses such as ovarian cancer, diabetes mellitus and pre-eclampsia. Children conceived through egg donation, as well as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) may be born with aneuploidy, a condition characterized by an abnormal number of chromosomes. More than 50 per cent of children conceived through AHR (including IVF) are born with birth defects and are prone to disability and sudden death. These are only some of the hazards associated with AHR.

Donors and surrogates assume these heavy risks - without their informed consent - for the absurd privilege of relinquishing the rights to their biological and birth children. Adult donor children have increased medical risks and may inadvertently have sexual relations with their half-donor siblings - there are documented cases of donor siblings who marry - because they don't know the identities of their donors. Many donor children have lifelong emotional adjustment problems, as well.

What is astounding is that many of these supposedly infertile patients have no medical condition that warrants these extraordinary interventions. Menopausal women who go this route are simply too old to have a baby, while younger women with no diagnosed conditions are inexplicably pursuing these pseudo-treatments. But, whether they are ageing boomers, same-sex couples, single adults or those who do have congenital and other health problems, their childlessness doesn't entitle them to other people's body parts, much less someone else's birth child.

The irony is that the recipients of sperm and egg donation are people of means and, often, influence, while donors are typically poor and disenfranchized. To portray these childless adults as victims, simply because they can't expediently access other people's reproductive capacities, is, quite frankly, ludicrous.

Yes, childlessness can be painful, but the commodification of children and the exploitation of vulnerable people for profit, is worse. The law isn't perfect. It has yet to mandate donor identification, necessary to ground the identity rights of adult donor children. But it aims to promote social justice, rather than the special interests of a select few.

» Deborah Rankin, Ville Lasalle

Anarchist delusions

For one day, the beautiful anti-American anarchists from Montreal wore down their protesting shoes on the streets of New York City ["Staging Dissent," Sept. 2]. Oh? So they were there in the eye of the media storm. Festooning the red maple leaf flag of useful idiocy. Good on them.

What their presence changed? Nothing. How far their photo-op activism advanced the political debate? Zero centimetres.

How wonderful their delusion of actually making a difference?

Priceless.

» Ron Huza

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