Photograph of surrogate showing parents-to-be ultrasound pictures

What happens when assisted reproductive technology agreements break down?

By Sarah Alawi

My name is Sarah Alawi; I’m an LLM Student at Harvard Law School, from New Zealand. I am excited to contribute to the Petrie-Flom Blog as a Petrie-Flom Student Fellow. My area of interest is assisted reproductive technology (ART), although I intend to use this forum to write on a broad range of medico-legal issues in the bioethics sphere. This post introduces my specific research interest in ART disputes, and concludes with a recommendation for anyone considering ART.

ART is a growth industry and yet, despite the sophistication of new birth technologies, its use depends on functioning human relationships. Commonly, parties try to define these relationships using pre-conception ART agreements. During my fellowship at the Petrie-Flom Center, I intend to write a thesis on what should happen, in terms of the parties’ rights at law, when three common forms of ART agreements break down:

Read More

Laboratory IVF petri dish under a microscope.

Fertility Fraud: Major Developments in Texas, Idaho, and Indiana

By Jody Lyneé Madeira

Spring of 2019 brought flowers, showers…and many updates on the “fertility fraud” front.

Perhaps the biggest developments are on the legislative front. On May 5, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed Senate Bill 174 into law, creating civil and criminal causes of action for fertility fraud for former patients and their offspring (and donors whose gametes were used in an unconsented-to manner).

Plaintiffs who sue in tort can be reimbursed for the costs of the fertility procedure and $10,000 in damages. The act makes it a level 6 felony to make a misrepresentation involving human reproductive material and a medical procedure, medical device, or drug. Read More

Lax Enforcement of Vaccine Laws Put Young Adults at Risk

The news about the return of dangerous “childhood” illnesses gets worse and worse. Columbus, Ohio reports an outbreak of 225 cases—with over 50% students at Ohio State University.   It is probably no coincidence that Ohio State recommends but does not require students (outside of those in healthcare settings) be vaccinated in order to attend class.   It’s not just Mumps.  We are seeing cases of preventable diseases like measles and mumps and whooping cough because of parental decisions not to immunize their children but there is increasing evidence that the immunizations most adults received as infants or young children wear off—leaving the population at large vulnerable to infection once an outbreak occurs. Science Daily just reported a confirmed case of a fully vaccinated young woman contracting measles.  The CDC has not yet recommended that adults get booster shots for Mumps and Measles—although they have in some circumstances for Whooping Cough and Polio.  But the more likely it is for a person to be exposed to these diseases, the more important it is to be fully vaccinated.

So why is the law to blame here?  Read More