Having followed the global fertility trade for some years now, it’s hard to shock me any more. The news items tend to fall into familiar themes, startling when you first encounter them but depressingly familiar all too soon.
But today I was shocked when a colleague at another organization sent me this.
This is utterly egregious and, I am not exaggerating, should, I think, be the subject of a diplomatic uproar between these two nations.
Hundreds of British couples could have children that are biologically theirs living with other parents around Europe or across the world without knowing, it has emerged.
A Spanish clinic runs an ‘embryo adoption scheme’ where spare embryos are donated to other women if the couple who created them do not know what they want to do with them or do not respond to correspondence from the clinic.
Furthermore, anonymity rules in Spain means the resulting children cannot trace their biological parents or vice versa. more
Categories: Reproductive Technologies
I agree, egregious and there should be an uproar and real repercussions. Mainly though people should just know about how unethical fertility tourism companies are, whether they are in Spain or India or anywhere, and hopefully decide not to go there. Of course, that assumes that the people doing fertility tourism have a sense of ethics and care about their offspring.
We need to ramp up international pressure on rogue nations that see fertility tourism as a lucrative industry and have zero interest in the well being of the offspring or the delicate social balance of other countries. Sanctions are called for, and even invasions if their experiments cross the line into crimes against humanity. And we need to make it a crime to go abroad for purposes of conceiving a person and evading our own regulations and laws. We can’t just accept it.