Laws drive couples to black market: critics changes to fertility legislation urged
By Sharon Kirkey, Ottawa Citizen December 13, 2010
www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Laws+drive+couples+black+market+critics/3967345/story.html
Canada's fertility laws are driving infertile couples who are desperate for babies into the black market or abroad and need to be reformed, critics say.
The six-year-old law prohibiting payment for sperm, eggs or surrogacy services has Canadians seeking paid surrogates in India. They're travelling to the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Romania and the Czech Republic for in vitro fertilization (IVF) using donor eggs. Some are buying fresh sperm over the Internet.
Only days ago, Health Canada issued an advisory warning about the dangers to mothers and their future children of using fresh donor semen for assisted conception. Message boards, Facebook groups, advertisements and websites are offering free sperm for willing recipients.
The law criminalizing payment for donor gametes or surrogates is putting desperate couples "in the hands of people that may not be competent or qualified," says Liberal MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett, a former public health minister.
"I just think it's horrible that people can't have that appropriate kind of care here in Canada."
IVF clinics in India are transferring four to five embryos -- created via IVF using the commissioning couple's eggs and sperm, or eggs from a donor -- into surrogates at each try at pregnancy, increasing the chances that at least one embryo will take, but also the risk of multiple births.
"If somebody ends up with triplets or quads, that ends up in our health-care system, in terms of premature babies," Bennett says.
"This is something that we could control and regulate if it was done here," she added.
"You can yank somebody's licence if they're doing bad things.
"This has been a disaster, and these couples, they're suffering."
Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq declined to comment. Her office said the Assisted Human Reproduction Act applies in Canada and doesn't prohibit Canadians from going to foreign countries "for AHR-related services such as surrogacy."
The act -- which imposes fines of as much as $500,000 and 10 years in jail, or both, on the commercial procurement of eggs, sperm or surrogate mothers -- is currently before the courts because of a challenge by the Quebec government. Meanwhile, a regulatory review of the legislation is two years overdue.
"We don't even have any regulations and we've got an agency that's out there doing nothing," Bennett said.
That agency -- Assisted Human Reproduction Canada -- has been dogged by the public resignation of three board members, accusations of secrecy, intimidation and budget irregularities. There have also been charges the agency has done little to police the booming baby-making industry.
Bennett has described infertility as one of the few medical problems where people are told "to get over it and forget it."
During federal health committee hearings as the legislation was being drafted, Bennett said there were offhand comments such as "'Well, they can get eggs from their sister,' or 'They can adopt.' It seemed so paternalistic and not remotely understanding of what these couples go through. It's devastating."
NDP health critic Megan Leslie said the trade in cross-border reproductive care is leading to a two-tiered system, "where people who can afford to get treatment do so."
Women aren't going to Sweden for surrogates, she said.
"They're often going to the same countries that the United Nations recognizes as having the highest gender inequality, so it's hard to imagine that (surrogates) aren't being taken advantage of."
Reproductive tourism "needs to be tracked and monitored ... and Canada needs to figure out where we stand on this," Leslie said.
"We can't keep our head in the sand on this one. We need to address the fact it's happening and talk about what we plan to do about it -- or not do about it. But we're not even having that conversation."
Women are getting advice on where to go for donor eggs in Internet chat groups. Some are travelling to eastern European countries "where the quality of the work that's done is highly variable," says Dr. Arthur Leader, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and medicine at the University of Ottawa and a founding partner of the Ottawa Fertility Centre.
"There are less responsible centres in Eastern Europe, which will push a woman to produce 100 eggs, whereas in normal IVF we're looking at 10 to 20 eggs, and with most egg donors, 20 to 30 is what's usual," Leader said.
"There are some people in those countries who are abusing their egg donors."
