When the title of an article is
"Making Babies, the Hard Way", I get all intrigued. Turns out they were referring to IVF, not some
ambitious position your spouse saw in a movie. Now that IVF has become fairly standard, Britain's Department of Health has published a draft of a Human Tissues and Embryos bill. The legislation aims to
address issues surrounding the use of, you guessed it, human tissues and embryos.
There's a couple of cases that get responses in the draft. In one, a woman froze some embryos when she underwent fertility-destroying cancer treatment, but once she and her boyfriend broke up, he withdrew his consent to use them. This makes the post-breakup division of the record collection seem much simpler, doesn't it? The proposed law would still require two-party consent, but would allow for saving the embryos for a year, in case of a change of heart. I'm guessing the authors of the legislation have never experienced the durability of a really pissed off ex.
However, British regulations around IVF will probably remain very cumbersome, with long waiting periods for treatments and tons of paperwork required for each IVF cycle. The procedures will soon be overseen by the same department that oversees disposal and transplantation of body parts, and doctors fear they will be held to standards that shouldn't apply to IVF, such as requirements for highly antiseptic environments. As one person quoted said, "sperm isn't exactly donated in a sterile environment in nature." That might just qualify for the understatement of the year.
