Committee Opinion 12 - Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos

Defining embryo donation: an Ethics Committee opinion

Insights from outside BJOG

How PGS/PGT-A laboratories succeeded in losing all credibility

BackgroundGamete and embryo donors face complex challenges affecting their health and quality of life. Healthcare providers need access to well-structured, evidence-based, and needs-based guidance to care for gamete and embryo donors. Therefore, this systematic review aimed to synthesize current assisted and third-party reproduction guidelines regarding management and care of donors.MethodsThe databases of ISI, PubMed, Scopus, and websites of organizations related to the assisted reproduction were searched using the keywords of “third party reproduction”, “gamete donation”, “embryo donation”, “guidelines”, “committee opinion”, and “best practice”, without time limit up to July 2023. All the clinical or ethical guidelines and best practice statements regarding management and care for gamete and embryo donors written in the English language were included in the study. Quality assessment was carried using AGREE II tool. Included documents were reviewed and extracted data were narratively synthesized.ResultsIn this systematic review 14 related documents were reviewed of which eight were guidelines, three were practice codes and three were committee opinions. Five documents were developed in the United States, three in Canada, two in the United Kingdom, one in Australia, and one in Australia and New Zealand. Also, two guidelines developed by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology were found. Management and care provided for donors were classified into four categories including screening, counseling, information provision, and ethical considerations.ConclusionWhile the current guidelines include some recommendations regarding the management and care of gamete/embryo donors in screening, counseling, information provision, and ethical considerations, nevertheless some shortcomings need to be addressed including donors’ psychosocial needs, long-term effects of donation, donors’ follow-up cares, and legal and human rights aspects of donation. Therefore, it is needed to conduct robust and well-designed research studies to fill the knowledge gap about gamete and embryo donors’ needs, to inform current practices by developing evidence-based guidelines.

Informed consent and the use of gametes and embryos for research: a committee opinion

Comparison and appraisal of (inter)national recurrent pregnancy loss guidelines.

Donating embryos for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research: a committee opinion

Comprehensive guidance for human embryology, andrology, and endocrinology laboratories: management and operations: a committee opinion

Aging and infertility in women: a committee opinion

Infertility is experienced as a deeply personal and private condition, which has been investigated across disciplines, from psycho-social to bio-behavioural (van den Akker, 2012). This is undoubtedly, in part, because the interactions between the biological–behavioural axis and psychological–social axis have been linked to aetiological and treatment factors and to the consequences of infertility. Recent data from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA, 2012) show that medically assisted reproduction (MAR) for infertility is continuing to increase, with 46,000 women in the UK seeking treatment in 2010 alone. Infertility is therefore considered to be a public health concern. However, prevention and ethical treatment require individual and collective responsibility. The currently identified public health concerns are compounded by evidence that genetic factors are linked to infertility, with new generations of children conceived through IVF/ICSI potentially affected by inherited damaged DNA (Bonde et al., 2008) that would otherwise not have found its way into the gene pool of new generations. Since treatment takes place at one point in time, and consideration of the moral rights and wrongs of the consequences of some treatments takes place at another, usually much later on within the social contexts in which they coexist with others, there is a discontinuity between the initial treatment and the future consequences of these treatments. In this paper I propose a simple prevention outcome consequences (POC) model for future comprehensive research priorities with substantial policy and practice implications. The time has come to face the new challenges with all eyes wide open.

Periconception care of the infertile patient: Are we doing enough?

Current Resources for Evidence‐Based Practice January/February 2012