Respecting offspring of embryo donation rights based on ethical principles

Embryo donation is one of new technologies, which in recent decades has been used for the treatment of infertile couples. However, its usage, like other new biotechnology methods raised some ethical concerns. Since compatibility of such improvements with ethical standards in order to protect individuals against the misuse of new technologies should be guaranteed, the present study was designed to determine the ethics of embryo donation.
This was a descriptive study of quality of services provided in 11 embryo donation infertility centers from Oct 2013 to July 2014 by interviewing 100 couples seeking embryo donation in the Tehran Central Forensic Center. The embryo donation instructions of these centers were collected. The research instrument was two questionnaires that assess ethics of embryo donation processes in infertility centers. The findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics.
In more than 50% of cases, brief information on different aspects of embryo donation process had been given to applicants and in 80% of cases; the necessity of legal or jurisprudence expert advices had not been provided. In 56% of cases, applicants’ mental health was not determined and in 64% of cases, the applicants’- embryo compatibility issues had not been studied. In 76% of cases, the embryo donation process had been described strictly confidential and in 28%, there was a conflict of interests between doctor and patient in infertility centers selection. There were no restrictions or priority in service provided and in most cases the donated embryo health was not guaranteed. There were no constitutional arrangement to guarantee child interests such as heritage, incest and etc.
The findings indicated that ethics of offspring of embryo donation such as autonomy, justice, beneficence and efficiency rarely were discussed with donors.