Balancing Rights and Ethics in Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Balancing Rights and Ethics in Assisted Reproductive Technologies Presented by: Prof. Dr. Graovac Date: April 13, 2025 Assisted Reproductive Technologies - Human rights - Children's rights - Public policies/Ordre public - Donors' interests Human Rights – Access To ART Human rights of intended parents: - The right to health (reproductive rights) • Expenses covered by health insurance • Informed consent (medical, legal - family law, and children's rights aspects, health risks) • Possibility to cryopreserve gametes (beginning of life?) - Nondiscrimination: • "these technological innovations have helped heterosexual couples, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit (lgbtq2s+) parents, and single parents" (tam) • Age (capacity for exercising parental responsibility, protection of a woman; Matišić: wax people: mother 57, father late 70s) • Race (possibility to chose a donor) - Right to privacy (toward third pARTies and their children) - Some rights important for children as well: future parental responsibilities (prospective parents should be capable for exercising parental responsibility -Croatia) - Ownership of gametes/embryos? (post mortem, divorce etc.) ART - Children's Rights Different categories of children" Intended children - • Who are beneficiaries of ART • Acceptable technologies • Donors Embryos and conceived, but not already born „children" • Pre-embryo • Embryo • Fetus - Minor children - Persons conceived by ART - Overlapping and different rights ART - The Rights Of Intended Children - Better: children' rights secured before ART - Dignity of human being (sic!) - Right to be cared for by parents (choice of parents) - Health of prospective child • Genetic screening • Choice of embryos to be cryopreserved and transferred -eugenic? • Reduce of the multiple delivery rate per embryo transfer (from 26,9%-12,9% in Europe) - up to three embryos transferred --surplus of cryopreserved embryos (more than 10000 in Croatia) - Traceability of gametes and embryos (new SOHO Regulation) - Etc. Etc. Lilla Garayova ART - Protection Of Nasciturus - - Embryos and conceived, but not already born „children" • Pre-embryo (up to 14 days of fertilization) • Embryo • Fetus Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Oviedo Convention, ETS No 164), 1997 - Protection of dignity - Forbids the use of techniques of medically assisted procreation for the purpose of choosing a future child's sex (except where serious hereditary sex-related disease is to be avoided) - Forbids the creation of human embryos for research purposes, but where the law allows research on embryos, it shall ensure adequate protection of the embryo - Prohibition of cloning of human beings - Still does not have status of a person, but it probably will have (nasciturus pro iam nato habetur quotiens de eius commodis agitur Children's Rights - Dignity - The right to health - selection of perspective embryos - The right to non-discrimination - The right of a child to know and be cared for by his or her parents as far as possible (social and biological parenthood) - The right to an identity (Recommendation of CoE and future Recommendation, SoHO rules) - Appropriate guidance in the exercise of rights (proposal of Recommendation 2156 (2019) COE Anonymous donation of sperm and oocytes: balancing the rights of parents, donors and children - state should inform a child on circumstances of conception in case of donation of gamete/s - Protection from all forms of abuse, neglect, violence and exploitation, including trafficking and including using ART for other purpose than to found a family ART/Surrogacy - The best interests of the child is paramount consideration - Advisory opinion (ECHR) concerning the recognition in domestic law of a legal parentchild relationship between a child born through a gestational surrogacy arrangement abroad and the intended mother (France, 2019): • The right to respect for private life, within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention, of a child born abroad through a gestational surrogacy arrangement requires that domestic law provide a possibility of recognition of a legal parentchild relationship with the intended mother, designated in the birth certificate legally established abroad as the 'legal mother' - ECHR promoted two-way approach: from the standpoint of child and from the standpoint of intended parent/s - Difference: protection of intended child ≠ protection of a born child ART - Public Policies And Legal Frame - All above has to be taken into account - Social justice - distribution of public funds (rate of success of ART, expenses, enabling and providing help abroad) - ART should be socially sensitive - not reserved only for reach individuals - Prevention of trafficking of children and women - Moral values - what is ethically acceptable (for particular) society - ART policies continue to promote ideals of genetic relatedness and coupledom as the basis for the creation of families (Nordqvist 2006; Cutas 2018) - true? - Problem of cross-border movement and differences in legal regulation - Order public, margin of appreciation