Ethics behind artificial birth still murky
Assisted reproductive technology, in all its forms, raises ethical and moral questions. Issues such as how to handle stored embryos that aren’t used, whether to remove embryos when more than one develops, sorting out surrogacy legalities and figuring out who’s in charge of keeping clinics in line.
Little regulation exists in [...]

CAMPAIGNERS fighting to increase the number of organ donors in Wales have called on the Chief Medical Officer to break his silence on presumed consent. And the Kidney Wales Foundation has appealed for new Wales-only laws to change the current organ donor system from an opt-in one to an opt-out system.
Neither Chief Medical Officer Dr [...]

Linda Fox of Brooklyn donated a lobe of her liver to save her husband, whose own liver had failed. The transplant took, and Ms. Fox said although recovery from the surgery was no picnic, she would willingly do it again.
Will Maloney, also of Brooklyn, donated a kidney to his brother, who was struggling to survive [...]

A San Francisco transplant surgeon was criminally charged Monday with excessively prescribing drugs to a 25-year-old disabled man last year in order to hasten his death and harvest his organs sooner.
The felony charges are believed to be the first in the nation against a physician for his role in a transplant.
Experts said the case is [...]

A growing legal movement to recognize a new fundamental right — ‘medical self-defense’ — could bring jarring social changes
GIVEN THE MAKEUP of the Supreme Court, this is supposed to be a time when conservative judges are reining in some of the “rights” established by liberals over the past four decades.
Yet there is a growing push [...]

Hospitals are being encouraged to adopt new organ donation policies stating whether organs are to be harvested after brain death or cardiac death, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees organ procurement, and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), which accredits hospitals.  The recommendation is creating intense ethical debates, especially in children’s [...]

The federal government set the first national standards protecting living organ donors with new rules that require transplant centers to detail the risks of surgery and provide independent advocates to protect donors’ interests.
Hospitals that fall short of the new standards could lose Medicare reimbursement for the expensive procedures.
The regulation, more than two years in the [...]

The South Korean government plans to ban woman from donating their eggs solely for scientific research.  The ban will reduce the amount of available eggs for research, but may not eliminate their availability. The government has yet to address the legality of donating “surplus” eggs, eggs extracted for the purpose of creating a child but [...]

As Congress renews debate about funding human embryonic stem cell research, people are deciding what to do with their excess embryos. Only the ’parents’ of the embryos are legally entitled to decide what to do with the frozen embryos. There are four basic options and no consensus as to which one is the universally ethical choice: (i) discarding the embryos, (ii) making them available [...]

Cancer treatments can leave women infertile.  For one woman, chemotherapy abated her ovarian cancer, but left her infertile. She was left with only one option to avoid a relapse: Find an egg donor, have children and get a hysterectomy — in five years or less. 
Today women can browse through photos and personal statements while shopping [...]