Today@Dal

From Postmedia, December 3:

Canada's fertility doctors are watching with alarm as the latest development in the wild frontier of assisted baby-making unfolds: embryos for sale.

A California clinic is creating embryos for multiple patients at a time using donor sperm and donor eggs from young, healthy anonymous donors - a practice that could be hard to police in Canada.

According to the California IVF: Davis Fertility Center's website, "anonymous donor embryos" offer infertile patients, especially those who have spent thousands of dollars on failed in vitro fertilization attempts, an "excellent opportunity" to become pregnant.

...

Francoise Baylis, professor and Canada research chair in bioethics and philosophy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, wonders about the consequences for the children born. According to the Los Angeles Times, a dozen embryos can be made from a "single pairing" of donor eggs and sperm - meaning children born from these embryos will have full biological brothers or sisters who are being raised by other families.

"We keep barrelling down a path whereby we have a demand on the part of people who would like to become pregnant and become parents, without always thinking through, what are the long-term consequences 20 years down the road?" Baylis said.

To read the rest of this story, visit the Vancouver Sun's website.